Swinging Pendulum
by cyan96
Summary: The fabric of time and space is more delicate than one would imagine. Especially when seals are practically made to tear a hole in their workings. The traveller in question isn't exactly whooping for joy to be in the past. And five-year old Jiraiya certainly hadn't expected to stumble upon the enigma known as Uzumaki Naruto. Timetravel.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, anything related to the story, its characters, etc.

* * *

Fate is a strange thing.

Sometimes, you feel as if you are already walking down a certain path, and everything has already been laid out in front of your eyes like a carefully orchestrated tapestry: Only to glance back to that time years later, and marvel at how wrong you were. There are millions of decisions of tiny decisions which can make or break your future, and how it can turn out.

There are coincidences that aren't really coincidences, the tiny pulls of luck and split-second decisions when one is tethered between crossroads. All of these contribute.

Fate is a fickle, playful thing. And just when you think a story book is near its last chapter, think again. Because you might just be hurled into a brilliant, devastating new adventure you never wanted in the first place.

* * *

In the dim lighting of evening, a slouched figure sat cross legged on the wooden floor of a small cabin. The oaken walls were reinforced with heavy steel, and the door bolted with a triple padlock. Not that any shinobi worth his salt and a few high ranking jutsu under their belt would have any trouble getting in, but resulting noise and debris would act as a cover up should anyone try to execute an explosion.

The air was heavy and solemn. A thin blanket of dust particles hovering in the atmosphere did little to help the mood.

Naruto, sixteen years old and in the middle of the fourth shinobi war raging outside the cabin walls sat in a lonely little hut somewhere in the forests on Hi no Kuni after being threatened to take a break off the war by Sakura.

Personally, he wanted to rush out into the middle of the battle field again. But Sakura and Tsunade had been very firm and violent about him overextending himself, even with the help of Kurama, both yin and yang. The others could hold down the fort for a while. Obito wouldn't be able to go through all the Kages, past and present. And Naruto would be up and running by tomorrow morning.

To make good use of the time, Tsunade had ordered him to scrounge through Jiraiya's projects. He had been the sennin's last apprentice, so it made sense to make Naruto do it; the boy knew enough about Jiraiya's odd habits and paranoia. It was to make sure they hadn't missed anything which could benefit the war.

The man-boy sitting in the center of the room shuffled a bit and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. His neck cramped, and his head was bent over the jumble of spread scrolls and masterful calligraphy, which made up dozens of intricate seals.

Naruto was certainly not an idiot (though many would choose to disagree), but he wasn't exactly what one would call the brightest crayon in the box either. It was a half on how his brain worked, the other half concerning the questionable education he received in his early childhood years. Naruto was what we would call a complete and utter "hands on" kind of person. If you wanted him to learn something, you had to throw him into it head first, whether it was learning a new technique by water balloon or activating an unknown source of power by hurling him down a cliff.

Textbook, or theory work, as Sakura liked to call it, just didn't stick when it came to his learning habits.

So it was unfortunate that sealing was around ninety percent theory work, five percent testing and failures, while the remainders went to explosions of any and all degrees. Out of the ninety percent, half of it went to learning kanji, figuring out how you could manipulate the kanji in a dozen ways and fitting different words in like a jigsaw puzzle. The other half went to physics, and which physics could be tuned to do what. It was a headache for even experienced seal masters, requiring an infinite amount of patience and more than your average quantity of brain-power.

His head pounded mercilessly from simply glancing at the spiral of words. How did Ero-sennin do this all the time?

As of now, the whiskered boy growled in frustration, and his chakra fluctuated as his eyes zeroed onto yet another horrendous piece of writing. This must have been what the Kages felt like when going through mountains of paperwork.

Naruto's hand fumbled with a scroll, chakra still bursting in unaltered irritation, and paused.

No… something wasn't right.

His chakra. Naruto frowned. It was parting, almost as if it were slowly being sucked away. Under normal conditions, this would have passed under his radar, but his reserves were still being restocked after fighting against Obito. He needed all the chakra he could get. The boy set the scroll down, missing the kanji snaking from the yellowed parchment and onto the floor.

Naruto tried to reign in his chakra. The pull retaliated and started to quicken the pace from a small stream into a river of energy. He grasped one end, switching tactics to repress it instead. The pull didn't stop in the slightest.

"Kurama!" he thought pointedly.

"What is it brat?" the bijuu in question had been enjoying his beauty sleep somewhere in the depths of Naruto's mind.

Naruto made a face. Just because Kurama was cooperating didn't mean he was nice. And the fox was particularly grouchy after being woken up. "My chakra's being… leeched or something."

Kurama scanned the surroundings. "… You flooded your chakra into a room full of seals you have no knowledge on." the fox deadpanned.

"… Eh hehehehhe…yes?"

"… Seals are activated by chakra."

"…Yeah?"

"… Brat… sometimes I regret ever having you as my jailer. And I wonder how you gained my respect in the very first place. Your intelligence certainly isn't the justification."

"OI!" Naruto squawked, indignant.

Kurama sighed. "Identify the source of the problem first."

Both human and bijuu locked onto the mainstream of energy, unaware of the slowly slithering ring of symbols veiled by the floorboards. Naruto yelped as the pull intensified tenfold...

"WHAT THE FU—"

And the Kyuubi jinchuuriki disappeared in a flash of white light.

* * *

His body ached terribly. His mind slow and hazed like a civilian's when they woke up from bed. There was a stinging sensation the blond haired teen hadn't felt apart from that one time when he was five. After accidentally scampering into the Saindaime's special paperwork incinerator after mistaking the label on the door for the boy's bathroom.

Naruto twitched. Overcome with uncertain nausea and the startling urge that he couldn't breathe properly. The blond groaned… into a mouthful of dirt.

… So that was why. The blond twitched again, carefully orienting his body so that he was now facing up instead of down. Naruto slowly peeled away crusty eyelids, blinking up at a sky nearly as blue as his eyes. A canopy of concrete buildings rose upwards imposingly. The boy craned his neck, ignoring the sudden ache in his temple and noted the slight indentations of slopes all around him. He was in a ditch. More accurately, it seemed that somebody tried to bury him alive and forgot about covering the body.

…Ugh… what in Ramen happened…?

Slowly, the gears in his mind began to churn. Eh… The old hag, ramen festival in Suna he recounted… Stealing the hat from Gaara… nope. Granny Tsunade, Obito uh… think it was Kakashi-sensei's dead teammate or something. Teme… dad, the Hokages…Kurama…the cabin, stupid baa-chan, I didn't need a break. And seals. Gah. Too many words. Naruto frowned, wincing at the mere thought of calligraphy.

Seals.

That's right. He had been going through his late mentor's belongings when his chakra had acted up and everything went black.

Meticulously, he rose from his position on the ground. Bit by bit, one hand plastered against the floor for support, until finally, the Uzumaki boy was shakily standing in his ditch. It was odd how the walls seemed so high.

And his chakra, Naruto checked his reserves. They were tiny, for him, who had the average reserves of several Kage-level shinobi on bad days. Almost as if the core had shrunk to an Uzumaki child-safe version…

The boy stalled for a moment.

A beat, then…

Frantically, Naruto scrambled up the sides of the ditch. He glanced around the dark alley way for something—anything as a substitute for a mirror. The greasy pool of uncategorized liquid near the back would just have to do the job. The image was shaky and unclear, like the type one would receive when looking into rippling water. But it was enough. It was also diminutive, short, smudged and—

No.

No fucking way.

Naruto stared back blankly at his reflection. Hands already in the correct handseals for a genjutsu release. "Kai!" he yelled desperately. "KAI KAI KAI!" Naruto growled. His hands jammed into the standard handseal. But… even if it were a genjutsu… Kurama would have already taken care of it… He pondered.

Kurama.

Naruto paled.

He plopped down onto the floor. He was already dirty and smudged. A little more won't hurt. Naruto forced his mind to be calm, settle down in a regular, meditating state of half dazedness. It took more time than preferred but finally he fell into his mind. The cage stood in the middle, a gigantic center piece in the city of sewer waters and pipes. Menacing, bars of steel with enough space in between to fit a horse held strong. A flimsy slice of paper was taped to the side.

It was also disturbingly, heart-stoppingly empty.

Now, Uzumaki Naruto had a love-hate relationship with luck and fate. The former had gotten him out of more impossible situations than he could count with large doses of sheer stupidity and coincidence. The latter had begrudged him to a life of an orphan (though that may have been luck, it's hard to keep track). Both in a well-stirred combination gave him the terrifying ability of therapy no jutsu (he had convinced a bitter man eating fox to work with him, there's nothing less epic) and otherworldly battle skills. As it was, both fate and luck adored to play with their favourite hero. So Naruto really should've seen this coming.

But he did not, which was why when one Uzumaki Naruto, shrunken down to age six after being swept away from the middle of a warzone, popped back into reality, he was devoid of the demon that had been sealed within him ever since the moment he was born. Instead saddled with terrible chakra control, minimal resources and the shock of having such a string of events happening continuously as compensation.

And when turned around it was to see the Hokage monument… with only two heads.

Naruto blinked owlishly.

Well… shit.

* * *

With Kurama:

Kurama woke up with a splitting headache, something he didn't think bijuus could contract. There was the feeling of cold metal constraints on his wrists, and the distinct scent of ocean air on the wind. A wisp of a breeze gently ruffled his fur. The fox cracked open one eye, nine tails swishing behind him.

He was in a shrine. The walls lined with extravagant seals not unlike the ones he had seen moments before his blackout. Even without looking up, he knew that beyond the thick layer of mist surrounding the small temple was the sea. Or a projection of the sea. Jagged slices of pearly rock spiralled up from the endless bottom, the sky burned a brilliant lilac. And the Uzumaki symbol was branded halfway up the horizon in the place of the sun.

The mindscape of his very first jailer was, interestingly enough, Kurama's preferred of all three. He wasn't in an atrocious-smelling sewer, and anything was better than Kushina. The woman had the insane but loosely intact mindset that all of the Uzumaki seemed to hold. Mito and her son inherited it too, if only on a lesser scale. The salty air was actually soothing. And permitted him to sleep when there was nothing to do. Mito had always been one of the more level-headed kunoichi of her generation.

Except… Uzumaki Mito had been dead for almost fifty years.

The fox tugged at his constraints, flaring up his chakra. The chains tightened.

Genjutsu was out. Madara's moronic self was the only one capable hypnotising the world using the moon. Which in turn was the only genjutsu powerful enough to create an illusion of this degree. But one wouldn't think about being in an illusion while inside that genjutsu. The entire purpose would be defeated, and it made the chances of escaping shoot up. There was probably some mechanism in the genjutsu preventing that.

Unless... Apart from their expertise in sealing, the Uzumaki were an oddly paranoid clan. They had backup plans for quite literally every situation on earth. And some even beyond that, Kurama remembered an incident about a flaming chainsaw and gender blender jutsu gone wrong, courtesy of an Iwa nin. Of course, all of them were carefully devised to be activated by one with Uzumaki blood, safety precautions and all. The brat had been flipping through his godfather's seals…and if the white haired man had managed to get his hands on one…

The bijuu's lips curled almost gleefully. The chains rattled once more and the grating sound halted.

Perhaps it was time to pay Mito a little visit.

* * *

Review, criticize, comment!


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: All In a Day's Work**

**By:** Cyan96

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Naruto.

**Beta:** Duesal10

* * *

Jiraiya had always wanted to be a shinobi.

He didn't remember just when he had made his career choice, the same way he didn't remember how he knew his own name. It had always been there, a thrumming in his bones that hummed in excitement every time he glanced out the window to see ninjas darting across the roof tops. Or the flip flop of butterflies that fluttered in his stomach when he peeked into big brother Sakumo's training and drank in the cold metal precision and the magic known as chakra.

Jiraiya had never really like the Hatake family apart from Sakumo. The father was too strict and the mother too ditzy. Neither of them ever paid any attention to their younger son. So Jiraiya had long since stopped calling himself a Hatake. He was Jiraiya, plain and simple.

But Jiraiya wanted to be a shinobi, and he wanted to be shinobi right now. The minimal age requirement was age six. He knew this. What Jiraiya also knew were various loopholes to bypass the law after snooping through so many different texts and offhandedly dropping hints near the local genin. If you had the backing of a clan or the Hokage, you could get in as early as age four. The problem was that Jiraiya had something akin to borderline hate for his family, and cheap pride wouldn't let him ask front out.

Instead, he used manipulation.

The white-haired little boy manipulated his parents the best way a four year old could. He impressed them, showed off his skills and bulldozed his way to their approval... or just plain out annoyed them. Jiraiya was not particularly smart or cunning, but he had a stubborn streak bigger Fire country when it came to getting what he wanted.

The boy crunched down a chunk of pride and asked Sakumo for tips. He holed up in the library when he saw older genin and even chunin mill inside the building for beginner scrolls. He practised in the backyard and tacked a leaf to his forehead every day until he could do it half asleep.

Even then, it was Sakumo that really helped Jiraiya achieve his goals. The older Hatake loved his little brother. So when Jiraiya chortled for a super-duper-awesome-jutsu or at least one that he could make him on the level of those "flying ninja, Sakumo had calmly settled on showing him henge to goad Jiraiya as a reward.

He then redirected the Jiraiya back to the basics in hopes of fine tuning the boy's rather atrocious chakra control. He had also sat the kid down with a stack of paper and writing utensils some time later, because the only thing about Jiraiya that was worse than his perverted tendencies was his calligraphy.

Sakumo knew that Jiraiya had the talent, the correct motivation and love for his village. What he needed now was a brilliant teacher to unleash his potential.

The boy in question obediently finished his exercises. And by the time Jiraiya's fifth birthday rolled across calendar, the Hatake brothers had managed to convince their father to enroll Jiraiya a year before the requirement.

Jiraiya had grinned so widely Sakumo feared his face would split open.

* * *

He was in. He was in! HE WAS IN!

Jiraiya would have whooped for joy in the middle of the busy town square. However, that was supposedly unbefitting of a shinobi, so the boy settled for doing a happy little jig instead. A forever amount (it was actually a year) of hard work had finally paid off. Sure, some of the henges and bunshins were kind of cool. But this way, he'd be able to learn actual kick-ass jutsu!

HA! Take that Orochimaru!

Unknown to most (except Sakumo) the white haired boy had a rival in the form of one of the local orphans. Jiraiya had accidentally bumped into the boy when he was spying on the local princess, Tsunade. Of course, her grandfather would probably come back from the dead to castrate anyone who dared to think about touching his little girl. Those were smaller, insignificant details. The long haired creep had gotten in the way of his espionage and moments after Tsunade-hime was out of ear-shot, he had stormed out of his hiding spot to teach Orochimaru a lesson.

It was the start of a... beautiful friendship.

Not.

Jiraiya strolled down the marketplace, idly glancing at the little shots sprawled across the streets. Sakumo had given him a little extra change to buy a graduation gift. Jiraiya figured food was as good as anything.

He scoured the surroundings, eyes sharp. _Woman, street vendors, damned people... no Jiraiya. Food. Now where are they hiding the chicken. Eh, farmers, kids, blond haired blue eyed kid around my age..._

Jiraiya halted in mid-step. Blond hair and blue eyes were an incredibly difficult combination to find in Konoha. And the kid with his worn, dirtied, orange, clothing and expression that was stuck in between awe and shock stood out like a beacon in the middle of the night.

Even apart from Oroichimaru, Jiraiya had a soft spot for orphans. He considered himself one of them, as his parents were no better than caretakers, and even then, it was Sakumo that was doing most of the caring and taking care of part. So, seeing this boy that couldn't be possibly be any older than him look utterly... lost, it was in his best intentions to help. Food always tasted better with two people anyway.

The blond orphan seemed to have caught sight of Jiraiya. As his features twisted through stages of shock, denial, sorrow, gratitude and halted to a stop somewhere near I'm-gonna-have-a-heart attack and recognition.

Now that was just weird...

Nonetheless, Jiraiya firmed up his courage and cupped his hands around his mouth for the additional volume. "OI YOU!"

The blond peeked over his own shoulder, apparently looking for whoever Jiraiya was talking to. He groaned. "No no no. You in the orange. Blond haired, blue eyed.-" A point. "-yes you."

Jiraiya walked over to the blond haired child, who was staring at him almost unnervingly. "Hey, you wanna go out with me for lunch? I'll pay," he said.

The blond shuffled awkwardly. "... Eh... I'm straight you know. Straight as a board, dattebayo."

Jiraiya twitched. What...?

Oh.

OH.

He did not just say that. "I LIKE WOMAN!" he squawked indignant. "And boobs, and woman... and other woman-related... body parts," he floundered. Jiraiya at age five was still waiting to receive the "talk." He cleared his throat awkwardly, deciding to push the conversation back to safer territories. "I'm Jiraiya," he introduced, holding out a hand.

The blond stared at it owlishly.

"Aren't you gonna take it?" he said, gruffly.

"What about other things?" the blond orphan said. Now that he was so close, Jiraiya could see the whisker marks hidden by grime. "Like... hobbies, and dreams and goals."

"... I'm not spelling out my life's story to a total stranger," Jiraiya replied.

"You offered to treat me to lunch," Blondie pointed out.

Why was he doing this again? The blond clearly didn't appreciate his efforts.

"Look. Just take it or leave it," Jiraiya suggested impatiently.

His hand was quickly grasped by a smaller, dirt-streaked one.

"The name's Uzumaki Naruto," Blondie said cheerfully. "I like ramen, my friends and people who treat me to ramen. I dislike people who try to take over the world for stupid reasons. My dream is to protect my precious people." The blonde-Naruto's hand tightened drastically as he stole a glance at the Hokage monument. "And... and I'm going to be Hokage," he ended, voice firm and a little sombre.

"... Naruto? Your parent must've really hated you."

"I never knew my parents," he said quietly.

"... It's a great name?" Jiraiya tried to reiterate. He didn't know how to deal with orphans other than Orochimaru. The prick was a special case.

"It's maelstorm! A Hokage needs to have a cool name!" Naruto insisted.

"Whatever you say." Jiraiya shook his head, happy that the tension had dissipated. "Still, Hokage huh? Well I'm gonna be the strongest ninja in history," Jiraiya decreed. They shook hands once, twice three times, and the deal was sealed.

"Now, what do you want to eat?"

The response was immediate. "RAMEM!" Naruto cheered.

"... I don't think there are any ramen vendors around."

"Blasphemy!" Naruto screeched, aghast. "How 'bout Ichiraku's?"

"... What's that?" Jiraiya wondered. By now the blond had turned even paler than he had than when first noticed Jiraiya.

Naruto practically wilted in front of his eyes. "But that's-that's it's...MY RAMEN!" he wailed pathetically, slumping down to his knees. Was he some kind of ramen addict? Jiraiya didn't think such a thing was possible.

Jiraiya panicked. "How about barbecue? I'll by you some instant ramen later if you want. They're really cheap."

The mere mention of ramen had Naruto bouncing back up again. Jiraiya marvelled at the sudden shift in mood. "Than what are we waiting for? Let's go!" he grabbed Jiraiya's arm with a surprisingly strong grip, streaking through the mass of people. "RAMEN HERE I COME!"

It figured all he could think about was the noodles...

Nevertheless, for Jiraiya, who half-trailed half-limped behind his newfound friend, dumfounded. It felt as if he had sign his fate to the devil for the better or the worst.

* * *

"Another set of dango please!" Naruto said exuberantly, swiping his sleeve across his mouth before meticulously placing the newly empty plate onto a stack of similarly clean ones.

The former jinchuuriki turned to look at his former mentor... or was it future mentor? Blah. The complications of time travel. More importantly, Ero-sennin was alive. He was a midget, with none of the experience of memories of his Ero-sennin, but he was alive and well. And if Naruto had anything to say about it, this Ero-sennin wasn't going to die of anything but old age.

Jiraiya slowly counted the amount of coins in his hand. A stick of dango dangled from his lips, and a trail of sticky sauce dribbled down his chin. "Just one more," he said grudgingly.

"Oi Jiraiya, why do you want to be a ninja?" Naruto inquired as another plate of dango was set in front of the two children. He snatched one for himself and bit off the one at the top of the skewer.

Jiraiya glanced down at his dango. This was a clearly important question. Not one he'd ever really thought about over the years. It was usually all I'm going to do this and that's that and no why do I want to be a ninja? It was also a little unnerving to receive such a question thought out question from someone with such a ramen-centered mind.

There was a pregnant pause as Jiraiya noticed he was talking out loud.

"I can hear you, you know," Naruto groaned. He wasn't that bad was he? Why did he keep on giving the image of an idiot to even the people he'd known for only a little while? And wasn't Jiraiya supposed to have been the loudmouth of this generation's team seven?

Jiraiya coloured faintly.

"I want to be strong." Jiraiya picked at his dango. "I want to be recognized. Be respected by the adults and stuff. I'm gonna be a shinobi so that they won't be able to look down on me anymore."

Really, the parallels between Naruto's situation and Jiraiya's were stupidly familiar. The blond chewed his own food until it became obvious Jiraiya wasn't going to say anything else. "When I'm Hokage. I'm gonna protect the villagers, and my precious people. And anyone else that needs help. And ramen, I'm going to build dozens of ramen stands across the village. You had better back me up, Raiya," he said.

Jiraiya threw up his hands in exasperation."... What is it with you and ramen?" he groaned.

A beat, then...

"Jiraiya. Not Raiya, you fishcake!" he yelped.

Naruto snickered.

Jiraiya twitched. "Why you little-"

The younger of the two made a wild lunge for the older one. Naruto leaned to the side, hopping out of his stool. Jiraiya twisted in the air, one hand one resting on said stool and flipped over the blonde, demonstrating a swift kick to Naruto's temple. Naruto ducked to dodge.

The blonde grinned foxily.

Oh, it was on.

Naruto swiftly slid under Jiraiya's guard after a missed jab to the stomach. A sweeping kick and punch combination was countered and sidestepped. Two jabs and a kick later, the spar became an all-out brawl of fists, much to the amusement of nearby ninja.

Ero-chibi was good. Prodigiously good even, for a five-year-old. And there were traces of expert training in his (currently standard-based) fighting style.

But if sixteen-turned-six Naruto couldn't defeat Jiraiya at age five, even with all of his stamina and future knowledge, it was time to swear of ramen for a month and focus on his training.

And to Naruto, that was as good a motivation as anything.

"Huzzah! I told you I would win," Naruto crowed from his perch on Jiraiya's back.

"That was only luck," Jiraiya muttered.

"I'm better."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

Yes!"

"No."

"No."

"Yes-wait NO!"

"You fell for it-ttebayo!" Naruto crowed.

"...Damn you," Jiraiya groaned.

"I bet the academy doesn't teach you things as cool as mine," he gloated.

"... … Academy…?" Jiraiya mumbled. "… Shit! Shit! I knew there was something I was forgetting!" he cursed.

Naruto blinked.

"... What?"

"The academy! I need to sign up for the academy today!" Jiraiya shoved Naruto aside, rising from the ground in a fit before dusting off his clothes.

"... You mean you're not a registered student yet?"

"I'm five!" he snapped. "The usual age requirement is six. I asked pa to pull some strings and get me in early. I still need to sign up myself at the gates though." He slipped a hand into his yukata and pulled out a slip of paper. "See?"

Naruto squinted at the words. "Er... I recommend my son Jiraiya... wait a minute… you can do that?" he asked, incredulous. Then again, didn't Kakashi-sensei graduate at like... five? Huh, he had always figured that was because of the war.

"Of course. You just need the proper backing and stuff," Jiraiya rolled his eyes.

"...I should probably join too," Naruto muttered.

"You mean you're not a registered student yet?"

"I'm six!" he argued.

"The age requirement is six." Jiraiya pointed out dryly.

"Well... I don't know where to sign up." Naruto defended. Hokage-jiji had taken care of all precautions the first time around.

Jiraiya sighed. "You want to become a ninja right?" Naruto nodded. Technically, he already was a ninja, but here, he didn't have his headband. Kakashi-sensei graduated in a year, and come to think of it: didn't Jiraiya, Tsunade and Orochimaru all do the same thing? He already knew the material. He'll be damned if he didn't graduate in the same time slot.

"Follow me." It was Jiraiya that grabbed Naruto this time around. And they started towards the academy.

* * *

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, I like ramen, especially miso ramen but pork ramen is also good. Home cooked ramen is the best, and then instant ramen even though it takes three minutes to cook and isn't really instant. I dislike people who delays my ramen orders and—"

"Kid," the chunin at the academy gates interrupted. His hand clenched tightly around his clipboard. "Name, age, medical information. No ramen."

"Ramen is the food of the gods!" the sixteen-turned six year old declared.

"No. Ramen."

Naruto deflated.

Jiraiya, who was already registered, sniggered.

"The first semester starts in a week," the chunin grunted. "Be on time."

* * *

"I need a place to crash, some food, paper, ink, paint... maybe some glitter," Naruto ticked off his fingers. He already knew of an abandoned apartment with adequate lighting and plumbing. The dust and grime was nothing an army of kage-bunshin couldn't fix, but Naruto needed some supplies and Naruto's wasn't a thief.

"I already said I'll buy you instant ramen. Paper and ink is fine, but paint...? You're on your own for the rest," Jiraiya said.

Naruto locked his hands behind his head. "Don't worry about it, dattebayo. I already know where I'm staying; it's right inside the red-light district. I'll show it to you later. Can you get me the paper and brushes though?"

"Redlight district?"

"Hmm… yeah. Papers Jiraiya," he reminded, checking his dirtied nails.

"Why do you need it?" Jiraiya demanded, curious.

"Need to practice my calligraphy." Well... there was more to it, but the excuse was decent.

"Alright, my house is this way," Jiraiya flicked a finger to his left. "Just wait a minute."

"You know, you're really nice for someone I've just met," Naruto yawned languidly.

"And you're an orphan."

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "I don't need charity."

Jiraiya rolled his eyes, zipping away quickly. He returned barely two minutes afterwards. In his hands was a small bag. Brushes and an ink stone peeked out of the thin plastic. "Here," he offered.

Naruto grinned, rummaging through the packet. "Thanks Raiya," he said absently. The blonde turned back to his friend, except Jiraiya was no longer to his right. In fact, Jiraiya was nowhere to be seen. Naruto grimaced, wildly poking around to find Jiraiya's chakra signature. Sensing had never been his strong point. "... and uh… what are you doing?"

Jiraiya, crouched behind a bush waved a hand at him in dismissal.

"Are you stalking someone?" Naruto wondered aloud. Given both of his future occupations, the idea wasn't too farfetched.

"Shhhh," the white-haired academy student hissed back, intently focused on whatever he was doing. Naruto inched closer to the bushes, decidedly unimpressed. It seemed that ero-chibi really wasn't as mature as he thought... but still, statistics showed that the more perverted you were, the more powerful as a shinobi you were likely to get.

Naruto looked past Jiraiya's shoulder and saw yellow. He looked farther and saw green. The picture of innocence and current target of Jiraiya's attention, five year old Tsunade-obaa-chan, who wasn't really an obaa-chan at this point in time, sat in the middle of a semi-circle. She was ringed by a mass of similarly smitten boys.

Naruto blinked. _Whoa. I didn't think Ero-sennin's crush went this far back…but it explains a lot of stuff._

Naruto's philosophy was that if you had to do something, you did if head on with all the motivation and love you could put into it. Oh, and you should never gave up on your loved ones. Strangely enough, this was also the philosophy of the entirety of the Uzumaki clan, who were known for their hair-trigger tempers and slightly… unhinged ways. Even stranger, fangirls utilised this as their general way of living, and Naruto had been fangir-uh… boying over Sakura for a decent chunk of his childhood.

But that was a story for another time.

In a swift movement, Naruto pushed his friend into the open. Jiraiya stumbled, cursing, and Naruto followed him straight into Tsunade's line of vision. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" he introduced for the third time that day. "And this is my friend Jiraiya. Can we play with you?"

Tsunade flashed a shy smile. "I'm Senju Tsunade. Um... I have a grandmother that's an Uzumaki," she said innocently. "Are you related to her?"

Naruto froze_. Uzumaki, Uzumaki. That's right, oba-not obaa-chan's grandfather was Hashirama…who married a Uzumaki. Wait does that mean I'm related to Chibi-baa-chan? And what's her name again…?_

"Who is she?" he asked.

Tsunade blinked uncertainly. "Who's who?"

"Your grandmother."

"Oh!" Tsunade scrunched up her nose. "I think it was… Mito! Grandma Mito. But I call her granny."

_Mito, Mito. Uzumaki Mito. Hashirama's wife. I think mom knew her… why was that? Uh… um… Oh. That's right. Kurama. She was Kurama's first Jinchuuriki. So Kurama's probably in her… if he got sent back too. But did Kurama get sent back…? Technically, he was inside of me… Gah. Too much thinking._

"Um-uh…what are we doing?" Jiraiya spoke up.

Tsunade grinned slyly. And Naruto caught sight of the tea set and fresh muffins on the dainty table set in front of her. "Tea party of course!" she chortled. Five-year-old Tsunade had yet to grow out of delicate, girly games. At least it was better than gambling and drinking.

Naruto plopped Jiraiya into an empty seat. He snitched a muffin for himself, and bolted, ignoring Jiraiya's cry of betrayal.

Thirty seconds later, a kage-bunshin eased into Naruto's spot at the tea party. The real Naruto happily munched on his muffin, supplies in hand, climbed the stairs to his new apartment.

* * *

"Sweeper Uzumaki, go clean the bathrooms on the second floor. Duster Uzumaki, the ceiling's still dirty. And you! Yes you. Go see if you can get some paint. Orange, of course." Naruto watched his horde of kage-bunshin carefully worked their way through the sea of dust and grime. He might've been six, but his chakra reserves were far from dwindling. Kage-bunshin didn't even need that much chakra control. You just shoved as much as you into a clone, and poof. An army appears.

The apartment was in worse condition than he had feared. Alternatively, it wasn't too bad. Those D ranks with all their plumbing and fixing roofs had to be good for something.

Naruto glanced down at the sheaf of empty papers on his desk, nibbling on the tip of his brush. He was a doer not a thinker, but two years under spymaster Jiraiya had knocked that the fact information was worth its weight in gold into his skull. Naruto didn't have picture-perfect memory like Sasuke with his sharigan, or Sakura-chan's ability to memorise everything she read. So writing down future events was important. The standard timeline would do. Except that the majority of happenings didn't have a specific date. Or maybe that was because Naruto had never taken the time to memorise the dates of anything apart from the Kyuubi attack. It would be stupid not to remember that certain incident.

He settled for writing down profiles for future enemies and powerful shinobi instead.

Speaking of which… he didn't really know about the circumstances surrounding this Konoha. Naruto tilted his head thoughtfully (a rare feat) and flashed through some handseals.

Kotonaru no jutsu was a modified version of harem no jutsu. It was made for the sole sake of spying. It was also used to get away from Ero-sennin when he decided to commence his "research." The jutsu had a Kage-bunshin base, the henge for sexy no jutsu layered on top, heck loads of chakra, and minor modifications so that the clone could be jostled and punched around a bit without dissolving. It was a beautiful masterpiece Naruto was as proud of as his rasenshuriken. The catch was that rarely did people ever see him using it.

Ero-sennin was the one who suggested it when he saw Naruto's talent for being.

Naruto did not act. Naruto _was._ He was the orange loving-loudmouth with a deathly devotion towards his friends. He was the shy little girl who bought food from the street vendors when they refused to sell their ware to the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. He was the artistic young man with moralistic ideals and a silver tongue. People told their actors to never lose sight of themselves. to not become the role they play. Naruto did the exact opposite. It was because of this, the way he infused parts of his personality into whoever he was until the line was blurred. Because Naruto was the little girl and Naruto was that young man and they were both Uzumaki Naruto, that he could play his role so convincingly. And it was because the girl loved Konoha and its kind people. The man enjoyed arguing with the wicked and stoned, trying to bring them back into the light, that Naruto did too.

Had Naruto not been the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, and thus better suited for the front lines, he would have made a fantastic infiltration expert and spymaster.

As of now, the boy scrutinized his creations. There was a red-haired girl in a sundress, grinning brilliantly, a wizened old man with a limp in one leg and a cane of cherry wood in his hand hunched behind her. A lanky genin looked at Naruto with blatant disinterest, ninja wiring in his fingers. There was a hardworking, tanned civilan farmer with callouses on his hands and cheap clothing to the genin's left, and a ditzy looking woman cooed and admired the little girl's hair.

Naruto snapped his fingers. "Attention men and women. We are in uncharted territories, dangerous lands, familiar perimeters we have to conquer anew. You know the drill. Go to places that suit your nature and hunt for information."

Naruto stared at his clones expectantly.

The little girl giggled. The woman cocked her head in confusion. The farmer and old man sighed, while the genin rolled his eyes. A chorus of "yes boss" in tones vacillating from jolly to boredom rang through the air.

Naruto waved his hand in dismissal. A swoosh of displaced air, and the five figures disappeared out the window.

Naruto sat down on his chair. The former jinchuuriki didn't particularly enjoy the situation he was in. Kakashi-sensei wasn't even born yet, not to mention the Konoha twelve or sand siblings. Hokage-jiji, who wasn't Hokage yet judging by the lack of head on the momentum was young. Sarubtori Hiruzen, the oldest person Naruto had ever met in his life (reincarnated shinobi didn't count) was barely into his twenties. It was wrong. It was stupidly backwards.

Naruto didn't like it.

Fortunately, Naruto was not Sasuke. So instead of brooding and perturbing to plan revenge on people who didn't even exist at this point in time, Naruto would make thing work in his favour. The heroes of his generation were nothing more than children right now, malleable children. Enemies and conflicts could be avoided. Orochimaru's ideals for immortality would be knocked out of his head before they ever came to him. Hopefully the fourth shinobi war could be ended before it began. The string of coincidences that led to it was so over the top all Naruto had to do was push one button to stop it.

Hopefully.

Currently, he needed to book an appointment with Uzumaki Mito, and make it out of the next few shinobi wars alive. The rest could wait.

…Or he could just wing it. His luck usually gave him what he needed anyways. Someone needed to pair off Ero-chibi and chibi-Tsunade.

Besides, Konoha was in sore need of a decent ramen stand…

The blond considered this for a moment.

Meh, why not?

* * *

Meanwhile, with the Kotonaru no bunshin-little girl version:

The orphanage caretaker quirked a smile as the scene unfolded in front of her eyes.

Their resident genius, Orochimaru steadily flipped through a hearty tomb as he tried to ignore the red-haired little girl talking loudly into his ear. Orochimaru was a beloved child, but the poor kid needed to get out more and enjoy the fresh air on a semi-regular basis. The only one who seemed to be able to manage this was that Jiraiya kid who occasionally dropped by and stirred the competitive side of Orochimaru-chan just by being alive. Any other time, one could find Orochimaru either in the library or with his nose stuck in a book.

The little girl, seemingly at the end of her patience, snatched the book away from Orochimaru-chan in a burst of hidden strength. She whacked the startled boy on the head, before settling the thick paperback onto the carpet and forcefully dragging him out into the streets.

Outside, the other children gave a cheer for their new playmate.

* * *

At the Tea Party:

Tsunade didn't know what to think about the blond boy claiming to be an Uzumaki. He was certainly loud enough, and he had the same flair for dramatics and preference for bright colours (if the orange was anything to go by) like grandma Mito and the people in her stories. However, the boy was blond. And everyone knew Uzumakis had red hair. Tsunade herself had marveled at her grandmother's gorgeous crimson locks.

Still, if she went by that logic, then wasn't she supposed to be a red-head too? Because grandma was an Uzumaki and that made her Senju-Uzumaki Tsunade. Maybe some Uzumakis were blond instead.

Pleased with her own reasoning, Tsunade elegantly bit into her chocolate chip cookie as the Naruto-boy jabbered on about pranks.

Likewise, he had brought her new entertainment. The boys here were so plain and boring. Jiraiya was a lot more interesting to play tea-party with. When Naruto paused to take a breath, Tsunade launched into her own story about this one time when Mito-obaa-san beat up grandpa 'Rama when he tried to show her how to gamble.

* * *

Kotonaru no bunshin: genin version

He was pretending to finish up his last mission report in a local bar designed for shinobi when an oddly familiar chakra signature drifted into range. It was soon followed by a ring of the bell, and a crown of silvery hair bobbing across the sea of dark-haired shinobi. There was the slight jutting of a child's features, and a desolate harshness in his grey eyes. Hatake Sakumo looked eerily like Kakashi with his hair untamed and face schooled into an expression of boredom.

The Naruto clone narrowed his eyes.

If anyone asked, he was Robaru Kaito, age twelve, genin. Kaito graduated a year earlier than most. He was an analytical, clever student known for his book smarts and efficiency at making do with limited materials and his ninja wire. Kaito did not know anything about Hatake Sakumo.

But Naruto did. Naruto would have gone up and introduced himself. Right now, he wasn't Naruto, he was Kaito, and he was on a hunt for information. The clone stole a quick glance at the Kakashi look alike, and returned to doodling on his fake mission report. A burst of chakra in his ears picked up the remnants of sensitive conversations and drunken slurs. Outside, a ripe moon dangled amidst a sea of stars.

The Naruto-clone shuffled his papers into a neat pile, and jammed them under his arm.

He brushed by Sakumo on his way out.

* * *

.

Here, in this desolate island of chance and possibilities, Fate sits on her thrown. Tall and proud, she watches down upon broken fragments, as her chosen one acts.

Beside her an hourglass spins on its top, reversed as sand begins falling anew.

The pendulum swings, slowly steadily.

Fate smiles.

.

* * *

**A/N:** If anyone questions about Jiraiya's study habits and ingeniousness. Let me tell you, he might have been dead last. But he graduated at age six. SIX! And that's not even in a time of war. There had to be some logic behind it.

As for Naruto? Well he's sixteen; he just got out of a war, saw friends die. Now he's stuck in a time and place where the majority of the people he knew haven't even been born, and in the body of a six year old. Oh, and half of his brain still thinks it's a genjutsu or something like that. It's barely been a few days since he first arrived (AKA woke up in a ditch), the shock, numbness and reality of the situation is still sinking in.

On the other hand, I'll probably be updating once every two weeks. Maybe more

**Thank you very much to: dayfox96, SHONENJUMPGUY, SanzOgirl, Midnighter67, Steph52499 for reviewing.**

Don't be scared, Review!


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter two: The fox and his Jailors**

**By:** Cyan96

**Disclaimer**: I do not own anything related to Naruto.

**Beta:** Duesal10

**Notes:** All chapters, including this one, has been betaed and revised. It's a more polished than before, so check it out if you want to. For new readers? ... Just ignore this message.

* * *

Sharp violet eyes glinted through the haze. Iced waters swirled and swished around her ankles with each stride. Her hair, usually twirled up into twin buns cascaded down her back in a red waterfall. Beside her, thin pillars of marble-like material rose through the air like skyscrapers, and a thick layer of mist clung to the air, shielding the little seal covered shrine squatting almost daintily in the middle of it all. However, the shrine was anything but dainty, considering that its somewhat unwelcomed, mangy furball of a charge would have blasted a hole through its walls had it been flimsy.

There was the density of raw, unfiltered power rippling through the air. She breathed in deeply. A little globe of white rock encased in ice hovered in the corner of her vision, unperturbed by laws of gravity. Reality did not apply in this domain—her domain—only her rules came into play.

Uzumaki Mito despised going into her mindscape. Where she stood in the middle of brilliant waters that reminded her a little too much of her home, her Uzushiogakure with its endless skies and ringed beaches.

The fact where the majority of the times she had wandered into the place were because something—or rather someone had managed to knock her unconscious didn't help. The last incident this happened was when some Inuzuka brat had the grand idea of pranking his superiors, and in a horrified effort to scavenge her burning scrolls, Mito had unthinkingly lunged into the house, dragging the Inuzuka boy with her. They were both unconscious by the time Tobirama came around the corner due to the noise and doused the flaming house with his one of his signature water jutsus. The moment Mito had been cleared from the hospital; she had made sure to cover the entire Inuzuka compound with itching powder in retaliation.

Unfortunately, being knocked out was the easiest way to establish a meeting with her resident furball. Mito found that residing in a state close to unconsciousness worked just as well. The other route was meditation, but doing that took hours on the end, especially since her seal was so airtight. In times like this when she actually wanted to talk to the fox, or gain more leeway to supercharge her powers, it was a pain.

If the seal hadn't been acting up, this conversation wouldn't even be needed. She had figured that the fox had gave up trying to bribe her into letting him go a decade or so back. Obviously not, as the concentrated bursts of chakra from the seal every hour or so signalled a renewed vigour in the activity.

The feeling of hatred was a mutual thing. The fox didn't like her, she didn't like the fox. He was ginormous. He was powerful. He could be controlled like an obedient little puppet. This was simply to keep another Uchiha Madara from happening, although she doubted that anyone else would be as batshit insane as Madara to pull off a plan like that, or nearly as powerful. It never hurt to be careful.

Slowly plodding towards the shrine, Mito carefully swivelled around the protruding tips of budding coral unfurling in elegant bursts like flowers. Her bare feet remained perfectly dry, even in ankle deep water. Her strides slowed as the mist parted into a wispy gateway, and a road of fine gravel and minerals replaced the glazed waters.

The shrine was exactly the same as the last time she had visited. It's bright reds and whites a stark contrast to the softer lilics and blues making up the rest of her mind. A panel of double French doors lined the entry way, and a thin barrier of mist cocooned the entire building. From her spot, standing sullenly at the bottom of the stair well, Mito caught a blurred reflection of the Kyuubi on the glass panels of the door. All fiery red and orange, chained down by heavy seastone and strings of flimsy ink on paper.

The Uzumaki stepped up the stairs, resting one pale hand on the brass knuckles dangling off the glass doors. A seal lay taped in between the crease, acting bravely as a shield against the scowling mound of chakra inside. Mito raised one hand and traced the elaborate seal work with her fingertips, careful not to damage the near-translucent rice paper.

Carefully plucking a corner with her thumb and index finger, Mito meticulously peeled off the sheet, her free hand resting on the opposite edge to steady her grip.

There was a slight shift in the air. Something unmistakably powerful had been unleashed with the simple difference of a slim sheet of paper. Creaking, the doors open inch by inch, devoid of the glue keeping them together.

Chained in the centre of the room, grinning madly enough to give Mito premature heart failure had she been a lesser woman, the Kyuubi tilted his head in what seemed like satisfaction. Over what, Mito wasn't sure, but she doubted she wanted to know. The last time they had a "talk," Mito had unceremoniously told him that she would tear off his balls if he didn't give her chakra. She prided herself to be one of the more logical amongst her hot-headed Uzumaki kinsmen, but the ingrained family trait got her from time to time. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin so that she stood her full height, Mito implanted one foot into the room, barely blinking at the sudden chill of deep-set melancholy worming itself into her mind. The temperature shifted dramatically, moist, warm air caressed her clothing.

"What is it that you want?" Mito narrowed her eyes, hands clenched to her side.

The Kyuubi's eyes glinted with ill-concealed mirth. **"Foolish human,**" he drawled, almost lazily. **"I have a preposition for you.**" The fox looked more nonchalant than she thought was possible despite being chained up and decidedly powerless. Had he been a human, Mito decided he would be eyeballing his nails in the universal sign of disinterest.

"I don't accept contracts from you, Kyuubi," she bit off with a snarl. She had learned her lesson the first bunch of times. There was the first time with the incident of a pervert trying to peek on her, the second time with the pedophile trying to seduce children, the third time when Tobirama had refused to be her precious little Tsunade's god-father, and the last bit when she was facing Iwa-troops a while back. The former three, she had partially blacked out in anger and didn't get to enjoy the wrong-doer's begs for mercy. The latter was when she killed a group of her own comrades in battle. It was easier to just force out a few tails she could control on her own. Any intervention on the Kyuubi's part was like trying to eat a Nara's deer. A bad, potentially fatal course of action.

The Kyuubi's grin faded a bit, but it came back in full force a split second later.

**"I was expecting that,"** he said. **"Very well, very interesting**." Mito inwardly scowled. What kind of game was he playing here? **"However, this is something you can't refuse, little girl,**" he chuckled, a rich rumbling sound paired with a devious flash in his eyes that made the hair on Mito's neck raise. **"Sooner or later you'll have to accept."**

She composed herself carefully. "Riddles Kyuubi? How unlike you," Mito said.

**"It will come to you. Someday. Whether or not you know when you have honoured this contract is up to you,"** the fox yawned, placing his giant head into his paws. He blinked at her lazily.

"I have never agreed to a contract of any sort. You speak nonsense Kyuubi," Mito shot back. Was it her or was the fox a little less malicious then usual?

**"Don't argue with me, human scum. Why I would offer your kind any compensation is beyond me," **he snorted.

"So why do you offer. If for nothing but your own freedom," Mito challenged.

"**You don't get a choice in this Mito,**" he said, without benevolence, though it was more mocking than spite. **"Humans are such moronic creatures. There is much happening in this world beyond your control. This is not your chessboard to play."**

"Then it is not yours either."

The fox shrugged, causing the chain of seals keeping him down to ripple. **"Perhaps."**

"Don't so smug Kyuubi. One day when I die, I'm going to bring you down with me," Mito clenched her fists.

The Kyuubi merely raised his tails, bringing them down onto the shrine floor. The building shuddered, seemingly collapsing around them. Mito's surroundings disappeared in a snowstorm of white and red. In the real world, the same red-haired woman blinked open her eyes and cursed.

She would need to be very, very careful from now on. For whatever that thrice-damned fox had planned.

* * *

Breathe.

_His head aches, and his body is frozen, burning with unjustified pain. Bones quake under waxy, crimson skin stained with blood, the smell of burnt flesh and choking smoke perpetrates the air. Lightning crackles overhead, it arches in long curved grooves and strikes down the wicked and the good. The sky runs red._

_His eyes snap open, the blinding spots and sudden waves of startling nausea keeps him incapacitated, blue pupils dilate in shocked anger, staring at the incoming danger._

_Twin lightning bolts twist and twirl around each other in a deadly dance, aiming from the bloody heavens down to him in bursts of pure power. His mind hazes over._

_No time for plans. No time for habits. Act._

_Now._

_He rolls to the side, muscles screaming protests to his brain, but sheer adrenaline and the will to _live_ triumphs over all else. There's the sound of a thousand elephants trampling onto the ground. A shrill, hoarse scream that might have originated from his own throat, and when the patchwork of rock and trampled dirt he resided in a split second earlier is torn asunder by a wash of brilliant white light, his body burns. Thin trickles of electricity spark greedily along his arm, traveling up the disabled limb and curling around the base of his collar bone. A blood-curdling scream rings through the air a split second later as he spasms violently._

_There's nothing but disintegrated stone and dancing dust mites all around him. Craters filled with ugly brown stains and bleached bones litter the area, the remnants of what were once living breathing people. The smell of fire and lightning and ohKAMIthePAIN reduces all his senses to nothingless._

_But he's alive._

_There's a thin paper cup at his lips, and calloused hands holding up his head. He's too numb, unable to feel a foreign presence even when it's so close. A familiar voice echoes in his ears. "Drink," she says, tilting the paper cup, precautious. He opens his mouth, nearly chokes on the cool liquid, before gulping it down in small, slow sips._

_Grimed pink hair brushes across his forehead. He cracks open one eye, the soothing warmth of medical nin-jutsu brushing over his fried nerves as logic and rationality finally flies back in. "Sakura-chan," he croaks. The girl pauses, and retracts the cup._

_Sakura heaves him up to his feet, one arm swung around his shoulders. "Naruto,"She reassures, before rapidly adding," you're going to go in hiding for now," her voice is soft, enough so that no one but he can hear, almost as if she's expecting a sudden ambush. "Shisho and Kakashi-sensei have set up a cabin in the woods, you have stay there," her eyes are grim and hard from the days of endless carnage at the hands of the two madmen still tearing through their ranks as if they were made of paper._

_He pauses, not quite believing his ears. "WHAT!" he screeches, indignant, wrenching his arm from Sakura's and nearly toppling over in the process. "What do you mean I'm going into hiding—"_

_"Naruto," Sakura's tone is calm, stern, and impatient, almost like a mother talking to her child. "Look at yourself Naruto. You can barely stand, let alone do anything else. You need to heal, get better. You're the only chance we have of winning this war Naruto!" Her eyes flash dangerously._

_"Bu—"_

_"No buts. Sasuke and the Kages will hold down the fort for the time being," she interjects, before fishing out a large, red rimmed scroll. "Shisho wants you to go through Jiraiya's old belongings. See if there's anything useful inside that can benefit our current situation." Sakura drops the scroll into his hand. "The coordinates are one the scroll." Blinking furiously, she gently eases one hand on his shoulder in a reassuring gesture, and gives him a small, tired smile. "Go Naruto."_

_"But-" he grinds out, a streak of bullheadedness and denial mixed together in a swirling concoction keeps him rooted to the ground._

_"No buts," her face shadows over. "You're going if I have to punch you all the way there. Understand?" As if to prove her point, Sakura gives him a superficial push to the direction of the forest._

_Stumbling, he tightens his grip on the scroll, and nonchalantly glances back. Sakura's still there, hands on her hips, giving him an I'm-watching-you kind of look. He turns and ducks his head._

_The scroll weighs a ton in his hands; he's tired, so utterly exhausted that he can just barely accumulate the energy to hoist himself upright. Not that he'll tell that to Sakura._

_Miles behind him, in the shadowy abyss of the newly made craters and upturned mountains, there lies a battle. One commenced by two irrational me. That is to say, they were stark, raving mad._

_One battle they are losing in terms of power. The Juubi Jinchuuriki tears through the surging forces of shinobi like a knife in melted butter._

_Yet, there was a sure-fire way to end this, Obito might have drowned in the depths of the Uchiha curse, but he still has emotion, logic and rationality cemented within his mind. The fact that he hasn't submitted to the Juubi's all destroying tendencies and gone overall homicidal like a rabid animal proves it. As long as Obito can be reasoned with—has the emotions and brainpower of a human being. Perhaps this is what makes humans the most terrifying of all creatures. Their very intelligence, the thing that amounts to emotion can be so easily twisted by truths and lies. A loving hero can choose to destroy the world in the timespan of an hour. A hideous villain may try to protect the very family he was trying to terminate. If you take a mother tiger's cubs, no amount of reason can ever stop it from hunting you down and tearing you limb from limb. Humans are different._

_Whoever said words had no power was a fool._

_Emotions and rationality. The keys that led to the undoing of some of histories' greatest. Nagato was like that. So was Gaara, and the thought that he could maybe one day see his parents again, feel that tender love, was what drove Orochimaru down the path of immortality. SasoriKazukuItachiSasukeObitoMadara. Betrayal, loss, loyalty, love, hatred._

_Love._

_Even he himself could have spiralled down that path driven by love and loyalty for his village and his precious people._

_All it takes is a few simple words, a streak of hidden intentions and terrifying intelligence-ones that can be realized even without outside help, which can turn the tides on those emotions and bring forth hell. Lies, truths and half-truths are not all that different to each other, all of the can be carefully manipulated to fulfill the situation. Other times, the human mind draws conclusions on their own. Like Obito to Sasuke._

_It is the same thing that can convert people back._

_He twists his hand through the coarse fabric of his Konoha headband, and stops short in the middle of the road, a speech already forming on his lips._

_An end to this madness._

_His brow furrows._

_Sakura. Yes where is Sakura-chan? Wasn't she in front of him not five seconds ago? Heart hammering in his chest, he falters once again. The scenery shifts._

_All of a sudden there's DEATHANDFIREANDSHRIEKS. Kakashi-sensei appears in front of him, screaming as his flesh melts from his bones until there is nothing left but a skeleton. He stands there rigidly, too frozen to do anything but stare with wide eyes. Sakura's next, her skull is crushed and arms broken before she too is swallowed into the inferno. Then comes Tsunade-obaachanandGaaraandSasukeandKonohamaru, and even old man Hokage and Ero-sennin. The world disappears in a kaleidoscope of red on red._

_He screams._

**BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.**

_… Huh…?_

* * *

**BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.**

"… Ughh." Clouded blue eyes snapped open as thin streams of October sunlight sneaked through the gap in the faded curtains. Going from one extreme to another was typical of shinobi. Naruto sat bolt upright, one hand going under his makeshift pillow to feel the cool touch of a metal kunai. Slowly, he relaxed, unclenching and clenching his fists, noting how distinctly clammy his hands were. No one got out of a war unscathed. No one.

**BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.**

He twitched irritably.

"Stupid alarm," the blonde muttered.

**BEEEEEEEE-**_CACHINK._

Naruto stared down blearily at the newly broken frog-shaped alarm on the floor, somewhat uncomprehending. Five seconds ticked by slowly, then: "… I shouldn't have done that… that was the THIRD alarm clock in three days-dattebayo," he grumbled. The noise was irritating, and despite his unruly habit of over sleeping, his other habit of attacking anything that made noise like a good little ninja was proving to cost him quite a few yen. He could have bought at least five cups of instant ramen with that money too.

Naruto turned heel and started towards the bathroom.

* * *

Three hours later…

Uncapping the pen, Jiraiya pressed its tip onto the first page of the neatly stapled package in front of him, stalling. The scratching noises of a writing utensil on paper were the only sound in the room, their chunin instructor—a thin man with a mop of scruffy brown hair who went by Hotaru-sensei—watching languidly from his position in the little loveseat at the front. An almost impeccable tremor in his temple.

Sneaking yet another glance at his new teacher over the makeshift barrier of newly distributed folders, Jiraiya carefully tilted his head at just the right angle. Making sure to keep his eyes down slightly as if he were skimming through the questions. All attempts at concealment soon flew out the proverbial window as he rapidly slapped a hand over his mouth, muffling a half-hysterical snicker with the sleeve of his yutaka. It was a good thing he was had chosen a seat at the back of the classroom. Detention on day-one wasn't a particularly appealing prospect.

The unfortunate chunin was blanketed from head to toe in a heavy layer of sparkling glitter, parades of tar and duck feathers in his hair, courtesy of a meticulously arranged, fool proof plan. There had been a complicated contraption settled scrupulously above the desk, which Jiraiya just _knew_ was Naruto's exceptional handiwork. He had this oddly comprehensive, and entirely out of character twist to his features this morning, one that bloomed into an impressive show of facial elasticity when Hotaru-sensei had strolled in rather be-raggedly through the door. Grinning dementedly, the blond had eyed the man with reminiscences of childish delight lighting up in his eyes.

The moment the young man had elegantly dropped in his chair, the bucket above him was discarded of its occupants, showering him with sparkles and glue. In a (useless) effort to avoid any more humiliation, Hotaru-sensei, having glanced up and caught wind of the other bucket, tipping precociously on its edge, hastily back flipped over his desk.

It was unfortunate that Naruto had covered all the bases.

Barely a split second later, the man had indeed flipped. Except it was not the usual, effortless acrobatics practiced by ninja. This time, he was horrendously off-balance when the chair had risen with him, cemented firmly to his pants. The movement was more of a face fault than anything else, punctuated by a string of obscene curse words and a red faced chunin, followed shortly by a chorus of rambunctious laughter and quiet snickering originating from his new students.

Even Orochimaru's lips had curled into something reminiscent of a smile. (Not that he cared, because he didn't. It wasn't as if he was friends with the bastard. Seriously. Oh-SHUT UP.)

That was two hours ago.

Jiraiya watched as Naruto nibbled on the back of his pencil two seats to his left, and Orochimaru's precise movements as he effortlessly ploughed through yet another question.

He was still wondering how the hell that bastard managed to gain access to the academy.

Damn prodigies.

* * *

_"OROCHIMARU?!"_

"You gotta problem with that?"

"It's Orochimaru."

"… Sooo?"

"He's a bastard."

"First impressions don't count."

"He's _girly."_

"… Well his hair is kinda long… at least he doesn't call you by retarded nicknames…"

"Retar—What?"

"You don't want to know."

"Orochimaru…"

"We'll bring in Tsunade-ob-I mean chibi too."

"But… _Orochimaru."_

"… Umm… are you talking about me?"

"… … He was behind me this whole time wasn't he."

"…Ehehe..maybe?"

_And you knew that the world was ending when Naruto's the one taking the logical side of the argument, not to mention trying to convince someone to sit with OROCHIMARU._

* * *

Gulping down the last bit of broth from his bowl, Naruto licked his lips, content, and carefully balanced his fifth empty cup of instant ramen onto the little tower made from its predecessors. Inches to his right, Jiraiya sat cross legged on the weathered picnic table. One hand curled around a red-trimmed scroll the size of a water bottle. The other hand shoving warm meat buns into his open mouth like a starving animal. Orochimaru and Tsunade had glanced up from their respective activities of taking notes and chakra exercises to eyeball Naruto's near inhuman appetite, the former staring with amused inquiry while the latter's expression bordered disgust.

Somehow, through a flurry of trickery and insistence, Naruto had managed to swindle Orochimaru into the little group.

"Soooo," Naruto started, wiping his hands on his shorts. "Let's introduce ourselves." _Again._ "The name's Uzumaki Naruto, six," he piped. "My _ambition _is to be Hokage. I like ramen-sama, orange-sama, and instant ramen. I dislike perverts" Despite being settled with one as a mentor every single time. "The ridiculously strong and insane cause they try to do things like taking over the world by using the moon," he finished, saying everything with a straight face.

There was a moment of tentative silence.

"… What was that last one again?" Jiraiya asked.

"Yes," Orochimaru said, checking his hearing. "Can you repeat that?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know," Naruto promised sagely. They really didn't. Especially because Madara's grand plan was so ridiculous it would be decidedly impossible if not for the even more over the top techniques sported by some of history's strongest. And even then… the whole genjutsu plan was still a bust. Like what the heck? How would people eat? Or sleep? Wouldn't they just die off from starvation or something?

"Senju Tsunade, I'm five years old," the sole female of the group butted in. "I like gambling, money, sweets and watchin' Great Uncle 'Rama and grandma Mito do ninja stuff. My ambition is to be the greatest female ninja ever," she mimicked. "I dislike idiots and people who look down on me 'cause I'm a girl." Never mind that a single meeting with Grandma Mito could change their mind to the point they would be grovelling on the ground.

Jiraiya stared at her with blatant admiration as she finished her speech.

"Orochimaru. Just Orochimaru. Age five," the pale one said quietly. "I like books and helping the elderly. My ambition is… to be a great ninja. I dislike drunks and people who flaunt their wealth. And… that's… it." Naruto pondered this for a minute. This Orochimaru was surprisingly…normal. A little introverted and a bit of a bookworm, though there was still a spark of arrogance. His skills evaluation done earlier by the instructor spoke volumes about his intellectual abilities… but in terms of personality, he was so not-weird that it hurt. The guy wasn't even dead set on becoming Hokage yet! Naruto turned to the last of the quartet, silently urging Jiraiya to hurry up.

"Jiraiya," the person in question introduced. "Age five, I like training and my older brother. I dislike Orochimarurules and adults. My ambition is to be strong." Naruto blinked at his friend's matter of fact presentation. His pervertism, or rather the lack of was disturbing. Maybe he should give Jiraiya a nice, long pep talk. Kami forbid he started brooding like teme. Then again, Jiraiya had turned out fine in the actual timeline. Maybe it was because Tsunade-chibi was here? Ero-sannin had _never _acted this mature.

The introductions came to an abrupt halt. And with it all flow of conversation as three child-toddlers and a de-aged time traveller sat awkwardly around a wooden bench, fidgeting with various objects. "Um… what 'bout a secret base?" Tsunade said sullenly. The three boys stared at her blankly.

Orochimaru blinked owlishly. "A secret base," he repeated, as if trying to find the hidden meaning in those words.

"Of course!" Jiraiya agreed with intense fervour. Anything to please Tsunade-hime. "We can like um… build a secret hiding place?" he trailed off, scratching his head confusedly.

Naruto just stared at them, completely lost. "What?"

Tsunade frowned, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind one ear with her chubby fingers. "I mean, we're friends, and friends have this top-secret meeting place to talk stuff," she looked at them expectantly, eyes melting into chocolate goo and a perfect replication of a kicked puppy. "… Right?" Naruto nodded mutely, a little fascinated at just how Tsunade managed to pull off that expression with such mastery. Well, even obaa-chan was a kid once upon a time. Beside him, he could see his fellow males doing the exact same thing. Tsunade brightened up considerably. "Okay!" she chirped. "How about the clan compound? Grand uncle 'Rama lets me play in it."

"But… isn't the meeting place supposed to be a secret?" Orochimaru spoke up tentatively.

Tsunade considered this for a second. "Oh, right." Technically, Naruto pondered, if no one knew that they were using the house as a secret base except for them, than it would still be a secret, except the house wasn't exactly a secret because there were always maids and people wandering around, so that made it a not-secret base? Tsunade wouldn't like the sound of that, he decided, she wanted a secret base. And was being in a six year old's body reverting his mental facilities back to a kid's? His train of thought did not make as much sense as it used to.

"I have a place we can use," Naruto offered. His apartment was rather empty, and he knew that Orochimaru's orphan status and Jiraiya's unbridled distaste for his current living conditions made their offers in this secret base business next to nil, unless one of them had been building a secret passageway to a secret space, which was highly unlikely. Three pairs of eyes zeroed onto him expectantly.

"Where?" Tsunade-chibi asked.

"My apartment," he said bluntly. It would need some cleaning up, and maybe he should hide his stock of ramen just in case any of the trio decides to sneak one out.

There was a moment of prudent silence…

"Naruto," Jiraiya said, staring at him flatly. "You don't have an apartment."

Naruto looked at him indignantly. Ah, the tact of children, or lack therefore. "Yes I do!" he defended.

"You didn't have one a week ago," Jiraiya persisted, unbelieving.

"I have one now," he said.

"Really?" Tsunade grinned, eyes sparkling. "Then we can go to your place after the academy ends, 'kay?" On reflex, Naruto found himself nodding once again, followed by Tsunade's hoot of efficacious triumph and Orochimaru's almost flabbergasted expression. They haven't even known each other for a day!

At that precise moment, the bell began to ring obnoxiously; startling Jiraiya to the point the white haired boy nearly fell off his bench, instead, crashing into Naruto. The blond kicked him off with a cry of "bastard!" And Jiraiya, suddenly sporting a new black eye retaliated with another punch aimed for Naruto's nose. The continuing fist fight had the delighted cackling of Tsunade and Orochimaru's half resigned, half amazed expression cheering them on until Hotaru-sensei dragged the two boys of them back to class by the fabric of their collars.

* * *

Four streaks of differentiating colours rocketed out of the academy at a near-inhuman velocity the moment the last bell of the day sounded. Two of the four were being dragged by their ears courtesy of one Tsunade, because Oro-chan looked as if he didn't really want to come and Jiraiya-kun was too slow. While the other blond of the little group led the pack, dashing with a child's enthusiasm through the Konoha's many alleyways with ease, if occasionally stumbling from overreach.

Tsunade observed all of this with an expert eye as she urged Jiraiya-kun and Orochimaru-chan to speed up. She knew that many people, especially adults in particular, underestimated the perceptiveness and intelligence of young children, more so when they were blabbing about tea parties and speaking with a limited vocabulary. Why wouldn't they? Children were small and cute, and the era of warring clans were but a distant memory for most. There was nothing none of the cultivated wariness that had been held nearly half a century ago, where toddlers were taught to kill before they could speak and the fingering of a kunai was the only graduation gift you would get before plunging into a bloody battle field. Here, under the rule of the Nidaime Hokage, five year olds, shinobi children or not, were still children.

But she was Senju Tsunade, granddaughter of Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito, grandniece of the current Hokage. So even when other little girls giggled and looked on uncomprehendingly, Tsunade would slap on the half-mask of childishness and watch carefully from behind the veil, categorizing the slightest flash of detail just like how grandparents and parents trained her to.

Tsunade noticed something very off about Uzumaki Naruto.

He was loud and obnoxious, and surprisingly articulative like Oro-chan and Jiraiya-chan, but Tsunade had long since categorized her group of boys as abnormal geniuses. He had an air to him, the slight feeling at the back of her neck she always received when looking at a shinobi. Shinobi and shinobi children were very different from the normal civilian children, the thieves, the orphans. Beneath the guise of eccentricities there was always something a little off, something that had seen death and gore at its finest, knew a dozen ways to kill a man with but a little chip of wood. In this time and age, most shinobi children didn't have it, wouldn't have it until they graduated and face the terrors of this world.

Naruto had it.

It was decidedly suspicious.

Whether it was due to his luck or some higher power, the boy still unwittingly managed another day without the mistrustful gaze of the Hokage on his back.

Thing was, Tsunade was still a child herself, and despite her perceptiveness, logic was more or less overcome by instincts. The slight tug in her gut told her to trust Naruto, told her that he wouldn't do Konoha any harm. _Look underneath the underneath, _her grandparents had told her sagely, but wasn't the underneath of the underneath the top? Adults had the flaw of over analyzing, the beauty of children was that they did not have the patience or reasoning to over think thing. So instead of reporting Naruto's questionable loyalties to the higher ups, the creeping ivy of mistrust and suspicion in her fellow blond was easily discarded and forgotten after a slim time slot, slipping into the depths of her mind.

Halfway through the journey, the four had fallen into a steady jogging pattern, even though Orochimaru-chan seemed a little worse for wear. The streets of Konoha blurred, alleyways bled into neighbourhoods bled into roads. Tsunade didn't even realize she had entered the red-light district until the_ people_ changed. The clean fresh air of the outer districts was replaced by the smell of sex and alcohol and smog, the buildings were cobwebbed and cracked, and citizens moved in cheap, sometimes ragged clothing.

Hesitantly, they followed Naruto into a little apartment building, tiptoed up the stairs and scrambled through a doorway that was quickly shut behind them. Jiraiya and Orochimaru quickly collapsed into an exhausted heap. Tsunade sat down with a little more dignity. Naruto bounced around anxiously; he did not even seem to feel the chill of exhaustion.

The walls were painted a ridiculous shade of orange with white ceilings; a stained mattress with a suspiciously clean comforter lay in the corner, and a run-down kitchen was stationed to the side. Despite the dangerously crumbling appearance of the building, the interior was in surprisingly good condition.

Jiraiya shifted so that he was sitting cross-legged. "I'mma gonna kill somethin'," he groaned, reverting back to coarser speech patterns. Orochimaru followed suit, giving Naruto a half-hearted glare before he collapsed. Tsunade had noticed that Orochimaru hadn't really want to go somewhere with people he'd barely known for a day, but had affirmed that she would drag him kicking and screaming if needed. Hence the red and still throbbing ear.

Naruto placed a chipped kettle on the stove, humming. "You guys want ramen?" he offered over his shoulder. Three varied replies of grunts, cursing and a polite yes came in confirmation. He shuffled over to a closet and threw open the doors, muttering to himself.

Tsunade paused, and stared.

She had been quiet, a little too quiet, because Orochimaru and Jiraiya heaved themselves off the ground and followed her gaze.

Something clattered noisily onto the floor, Tsunade had suspicions it was the scroll Jiraiya had been holding onto for the entire morning. Jiraiya's jaw dropped.

"'Ruto," Jiraiya gaped. He pointed a single finger around wildly. "How-where-HOW…?!"

Naruto blinked and pivoted on his heel, staring back at them blankly.

Behind him, the inside of the closet was roughly that of a small bedroom. Tsunade suspected that it had been a bedroom, once upon a time, before the space had been cleared for other purposes. Now, piled towards the ceiling, all diligently organized, there was the largest stock of ramen Tsunade had ever seen in her short life. There were no signs of anything else edible in the apartment. Naruto did not have a fridge. Did he live off instant ramen?

"Is all that ramen?" she wondered aloud.

Naruto gave her an offended look, a cup of pork flavoured noodles in his hands. "Course not! I've lots o' stuff behind there. Ramen's the most important so it's up front."

"How'd you afford all that stuff?!" Jiraiya marvelled.

The blond shrugged. "I do odd jobs around the village, got some money. Eh…there were bargains, and some of 'em were scavenged," he patted his kettle affectionately.

"Did you live in the orphanage before this?" Orochimaru inquired.

Something dark flitted over Naruto's face. It was gone so quickly Tsunade figured it was a trick of the light. Or maybe not. Maybe he had been placed in an orphanage before this, and something happened. The red light districts were places of anarchy and criminal activities, the Hokage did not have as much power over its people as he did the other districts of Konoha.

Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Dunno. Maybe. But I don't remember that far back. Grew up around this place, ya know?"

Tsunade nodded.

Naruto poured the hot water from the kettle into three ramen cups, carefully handling the meal. Smoothing out the lids so that steam wouldn't escape, the ramen was settled onto the grainy counter. He sauntered over to where Tsunade rested, plopping down onto a cushion. "Anyways," he grinned, "Do any of you know about tree climbing?"

* * *

The first time around when he had been small, circumstances were different. Six year old Naruto had very different views and priorities then sixteen year old Naruto. He hadn't all the sneers and cold, dead eyes, hadn't liked being thrown out of the orphanage and left to scavenge in the streets of the red-light districts for himself. At least there, the people were so caught up in their own problems that even the Kyuubi brat meant nothing to them.

Six year old Naruto had not liked Konoha.

The sexy no jutsu and its variations were a little side effect. Under the cloak of the jutsu, he did not have to be himself. Naruto could have been anyone he wanted to be. He could be an idiot, an airhead, an optimist. The red-light district of Konoha was his playground and he was the puppeteer to the little group of players he had crafted.

Back then, Naruto hadn't liked being Uzumaki Naruto.

Fifty years meant next to nothing, as the major roads and alleyways were almost identical to the future's, Naruto was glad for that. It made getting around a lot easier. When he became Hokage, he was going to give the area a makeover, a little slice of appreciation to its people. Preferably in orange.

The buildings were still crummy, a good thing at this point because in hindsight, teaching a trio five year olds tree-walking was not the brightest idea he has ever had. Geniuses or not.

"You motherfuck—" _THUMP_

And there went ero-chibi.

They had evacuated his apartment an hour earlier for the room next door when he had attempted to tree-climb indoors, and blew a hole in his wall instead. Damned chakra control.

Tsunade-chibi was the first to succeed after ten—twenty minutes of trial and error. Her large reservoirs and superb chakra control was Senju heritage, their distant Uzumaki cousins had received the former but none of the latter. Orochimaru had the second greatest progress, but he had forgone climbing to remain limply on the floor do to chakra shortage. Jiraiya's success was hovering somewhere above zero.

"Naruto!"

_Ignore him. He isn't there._ The blond chanted stubbornly, eyes glued to the wall, hands spread horizontally like a bird in mid-flight to maintain balance.

"OI NARUTO! NARUT—" _Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. "—_Come on you blond haired wuss—"_ Ignore. Ignore. Ignore…wait, WHAT'D HE CALL ME?! Why that freaking –_THUNK

"YOU BASTARD!" Naruto screamed from the ground. "I WAS ALMOST AT THE CEILING. AND I AIN'T A WUSS!"

Jiraiya scowled. "How did you do that?" he said impatiently.

"I was almost at the top!" Naruto wailed.

"SHOW ME HOW YOU GOT THERE!" Jiraiya matched Naruto's ear-splitting volume.

The gears churned in his mind. "Wait a minute." Naruto stared at Jiraiya incredulously. "You," he pointed a finger at ero-chibi. "Made me." The finger was redirected to point to himself. "Fall down to teach you tree walking," he reiterated, jumping back onto both feet.

"Technically, all I wanted to do was to get your attention. The falling down part was your own fault." Jiraiya replied theoretically.

"Answer my question!"

"Then… yes." Jiraiya admitted, he waved one hand in a flippant gesture.

There was a beat of prudent silence as Tsunade and Orochimaru traded their respective resting spots for a better view of the oncoming battle.

Naruto punched him in the face.

* * *

Sakumo entered Jiraiya's room with silent, padded footsteps. He slowly opened the painted door, making a mental note to oil the hinges so that they wouldn't creak in the future, and gave a half-sigh of fond exasperation at the sight of his younger brother.

"Jiraiya," Sakumo exhaled, unimpressed. He reached into the little pouch at his waist, fished around for a second, and brought out a thick gauze of white bandages. "Why do you have a broken nose on the _first day of school?"_

"It ain't my fault!" his younger brothered protested weakly from his perch on his futon. "I was just asking about something!"

"Sure you were." Sakumo cradled his head in his hands, wondering why children had the unnecessary habit of getting themselves into unlikely and equally dangerous situations. As long as Jiraiya didn't go into the red-light districts, Kami knows how many criminals were in that place... or outside of Konoha... or near the some of Konoha's larger clans. Suddenly, the illustration of a six-year old, slightly older Jiraiya scrambling through the Forest of Death appeared in his mind. _Repress._ Sakumo prayed. _It will never happen._

"Just where were you anyways?" the older Hatake rolled a swathe of bandages onto his fingers, and fished out a small red jar from his back pocket. Sakumo dropped onto one knee, popped the lid of the jar, and rubbed some ointment onto Jiraiya's bruises.

Jiraiya perked at the change in topic. "My friend took me somewhere near the northern wall." Sakumo slowly wrapped the white strips of cloth along Jiraiya's calf, making sure to layer it. "It smelt kinda funny though. And the buildings looked like they were gonna topple. He said somethin' 'bout the red-li—"

"You know what?" Sakumo said, knotting the bandages a little too tight for comfort. "I don't want to know."

* * *

Mito elegantly settled her teacup onto the oak desk, smiling slightly as Tsunade bounced around on the bed. The little girl hopped into Mito's lap, curling into a ball.

"Granny Mito!" Tsunade chirped. "Guess what?"

"I do not know, tell me little one." Mito replied, ruffling Tsunade's fluffy golden hair affectionately.

"I made a new friend Granny! Three of them! There's Oro-chan and Jiraiya-kun and Naruto-chan!" she giggled. "Well, I met Naruto and Jiraiya at a tea party, and Oro-chan's really pale and he's quiet all the time and he reads a lot. Like you granny. Jiraiya's kinda silly, he has pretty white hair and red line-thingys under his eyes. Naruto-chan's kinda cool and he has the most gorgeous blue eyes _ever._ But Jiraiya and Naruto fight all the time and Orochimaru-chan tries to stop them and I like watching them 'cause they're really, really funny together." she babbled, smoothing her hands over the folds of Mito's kimono. "Granny, you smell nice. Like flowers. And the soap papa never lets me use."

Mito threw back her head and laughed indulgently. "Go on," she pressed.

"Naruto likes ramen. Like really, really likes ramen. And pranks. He has whisker marks and hair like mine, but not yours. Which is weird 'cause he's a Uzumaki, but some Uzumakis have blond hair instead of red. I have blond hair too! And so did papa. And-and-Granny? Don't tug my hair." Tsunade complained.

Mito's hands froze, her mind backtracked.

"Uzumaki?" Mito quirked an eyebrow.

"Yeah! And he likes pranking and orange and he's loud and bounces around a lot." Tsunade replied enthusiastically. She wriggled furiously out of Mito's steeled grip.

_Perhaps, this has something to do… with the fox. Or maybe it is just a simple coincidence. _The academy was starting, and there was bound to be an oddball or two running around. To befriend her granddaughter on the very first day though, and didn't Tsunade say something about a tea party?

It was so very interesting.

Exhaling quietly, the red-haired woman closed her eyes.

"Come, let's go for dinner." Mito rose from the bed. Tsunade scrambled gleefully to her side. They walked across the polished wooden flooring, hand in hand, and out the door of the bedroom, closing it behind them with a hollow clack.

* * *

.

_Experience can be measured in time. Time brings life, it brings death, love, calamity and change. It is something that never had a beginning and never has an end. You cannot stop time, stall it, perhaps twist it to your liking, but never stop it. Time is not a power meant to fall into mortal hands, or even that of God's._

_Once upon a time, shall we. There was old lady Tsunade, a broken, washed out shell of her former self. Her hopes and dreams settling ambiguously at the bottom of a sake cup. With time and change, she came across a hot-headed boy in orange and he transfigured her life. In a nothing stretch of time and another stretch of reality, could that have still happened?_

_Beware when you waltz with time, because as exhilarating as the prospect of change is, with it comes tragedies just lurking behind the corner._

_In the end, Time is but a painter with a keen eye and a flair for the impossible. Creating a masterpiece, stroke by stroke, colour by colour, on the canvas known as the world._

_._

* * *

I've got a beta in the form of the wonderful Duesal10, and I'll repost the past three chapters, including this one, as soon as he's done editing them.

**Thank you to: AmandaSingh0, Erydanes, ImaginationJunkie1412, Roy23, Radiant Celestial Aura and Duesal10** for reviewing.

Expect the next chapter to be in around three weeks my darling readers.

Criticize, comment, leave a review on your way out please!


	4. Chapter 3

_This chapter was supposed to be posted earlier in the week, but there was a massive power shortage that lasted four days in the city. Nonetheless, enjoy. _

**Chapter Three: Movement**

**By: **Cyan96

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Beta:** Give a round of applause to the totally awesome Duesal10

* * *

Orochimaru's hands stung as they impacted with the rough gravel. He crouched low on the ground, breathing out in short gasps, his ponytail trailing behind him as a frigid gust swept through the courtyard. Saffron eyes glinting, the pale boy directed his stare at the towering brick wall of the orphanage.

His chakra capacity, although large for his age, paled drastically in the face of his fellow peers (it was more or less in the genetic makeup, there were clan children… and Naruto). His control was better than Jiraiya's and Naruto's combined yes, but tree climbing had managed to quadruple his reserves with minimum effort, besides, it was good practice.

All four of them had easily advanced to third year of the ninja academy during the three months of school. Orochimaru and Tsunade a little faster than Naruto and Jiraiya, but that might be because the former had been pranking teachers and skipping classes while the latter more often than not dosed off during lessons. The academy homework was easy, tedious maybe, but still uncomplicated and relatively effortless.

The random exercises the group made up on a whim were not.

They had mastered tree climbing as a whole in two weeks, (with an extravagant amount of profane language—some of which Orochimaru didn't believe existed in the elemental nations before this). Water walking had been polished up and knocked off the to-do list after another two weeks, and somehow, (Orochimaru didn't want to know) Tsunade had managed to smuggle some of her grandmother's basic fuuinjutsu equipment (brushes, chakra infused ink, paper, a thick, blue rimmed scroll on the foundations of seal work) out of Mito-sama's office and into Naruto's apartment.

The blond in question had managed exactly three seals—two types of explosives and one storage scroll with almost fake ease before giving up on seals altogether, claiming that the random kanji and squiggly lines gave him a never ending migraine. When Jiraiya tried to create a seal (he had the nicest hand writing out the four), and activated it in the middle of Naruto's rickety little table, the-should-have-been-storage scroll exploded spectacularly in Jiraiya's face. It gouged out a good portion of the table too.

To Orochimaru's severely disintegrating mental health, they still insisted to practice seal work even after that incident.

But Orochimaru couldn't deny he was intrigued. Seal work was very, very interesting; with danger's feathery touch constantly hovering above the art like a katana. His own attempts at making a seal ended up backfiring on him in explosions, nearly giving him a panic attack as it was. Naruto seemed perfectly immune to this, he and Tsunade seemed to have the demented philosophy that either involved "set it on fire", "blow it up" or both at once. Orochimaru figured it was a blond thing.

At their insistence, he had helped clear out several of the rooms next to Naruto's. He then hauled up some scrounged furniture which wouldn't have been missed by anyone if Jiraiya managed to make them detonate in his experimentation, and gently resigned himself to their shenanigans.

Orochimaru prided himself to be logical and rational, and anything that translated back to sensible, especially amongst the quartet of decidedly not sane people he hung out with. He wasn't sure why or how he was friends with those weirdoes, but they had grown on him like fungus, and he had done his best to direct them away from troublesome situations.

For all he knew, Naruto might have scampered off into the forest with three meter long centipedes (it was the Forest of Death or something) looking for something to do, or maybe it was Jiraiya because he was trying to prove his parents wrong (again), or Tsunade because she was bored out of her mind. Naruto had insisted out of the blue last week they explore the place, to which Orochimaru froze, nearly having a miniature heart attack, then desperately turned the conversation into safer areas. It was as if they didn't have a single bone of sense in their entire bodies, and he was the only anchor to keep them from trying to fake an assassination on the Hokage by night, and getting themselves skewered in the process.

It was maddening. _They _were maddening. Orochimaru found it hard not to join the madness despite the large part of his brain screeching denial.

Humans were liked that, he supposed, human children—the younger ones even more so. they were naïve, gullible and unbelievably adaptable to their surroundings.

Orochimaru figured that he had been lucky to chance upon a group of friends with high intellectual abilities. Granted, they didn't _seem _particularly intelligent at first glance… or second… or third, but they had moments where they demonstrated a surprising amount of depth in their choices. He just wished these gifts translated into other areas, like an actual sense of danger.

He had encountered Jiraiya one gloomy day nearly a year ago. Orochimaru had quite literally tripped over the tanned weirdo curled up behind one of the orphanage's many evergreen shrubs after Jiraiya had fallen down in an expedition to climb a tree.

Naruto was a different story altogether, it was the first day of the academy, and the Hokage had been in the middle of pronouncing the official speech to the freshly minted ninja-wannabes before the first bell. Naruto had taken one glance at Orochimaru, deemed him "really, really sad" and dragged him by the arm away from "the stupid talking" as the older boy had eloquently put it.

Naruto had been oddly wary of him at first, despite being the one who incorporated Orochimaru into the group. Though that might have been because he was a tad friendlier with Tsunade and Jiraiya (fellow enthusiastic maniacs) and Orochimaru was over thinking about the circumstances surrounding his idiots.

Orochimaru suspected that Tsunade had already known about Jiraiya's questionable habits and priorities (Naruto definitely knew). She hadn't been raised in a family of Kage-level shinobi for nothing, out of all of them; Orochimaru estimated it was Tsunade who had the most experience. Naruto came next; he had an expert eye and wicked intelligence under that stupid façade… probably. Orochimaru was never really sure when it came to Naruto. One moment he could be all sage-like and wise, and the next he played the stereotype "blonds are dumb" up to eleven.

Tsunade was like that too, she was just a little more subtle about it. Orochimaru didn't even refer to Tsunade and Naruto as two people these days. The two were practically conjoined at the hip, whether it was because of hair colour or Uzumaki genes. It wasn't Tsunade and Naruto or Naruto and Tsunade, no it when they were together; it was _NarutoandTsunade_, one and the same. He suspected that they were long, lost twins, or siblings at the very least. They certainly acted similarly enough.

Orochimaru just wished he could catch onto their peculiar, disjointed conversations.

The first rays of sunlight reflected off the shards of stained-glass windows decorating the orphanage, painting the compact dirt ground with a mired of colours. Orochimaru squinted through the sudden display of light, straightened, and grudgingly called it a morning.

* * *

Naruto grinned, holding up a bucket full of paint. "So should we—"

Tsunade snickered. "They'll never—"

"Then we'll—"

"No, no—" Tsunade shook her head.

Naruto licked his lips. "Then… "

"After that," Tsunade stated matter of factly.

"Half—"

"Entire."

Naruto tapped his chin with the striped pencil resting in his free hand. "'Kay-ttebayo."

Sitting cross legged on the top of the Nidaime's head Jiraiya glared irritably at the two blonds before he threw up his hands in defeated resignation. "I give up," he grumbled. "What're they talking about?"

Orochimaru looked up from his scroll (he always seemed to have one at hand, no matter the situation) and inspected the duo talking noisily beside them, their conversation punctuated with the occasional snicker. Naruto had changed from his usual clothes to that of a blindingly orange, black trimmed eyesore of a jumpsuit. Tsunade wasn't much better, with her equally orange track pants and woolly sweater vest. Orochimaru dearly hoped they weren't going to rope him and Jiraiya into their next fashion expedition; orange was so not his colour.

"Perhaps they are talking about their next prank," Orochimaru deduced, turning back to Jiraiya.

Jiraiya growled sourly. "I know that! What prank?!" He crossed his arms and let out a small huff.

"Whatever it is…" Orochimaru muttered as Tsunade whipped out a can of bright pink spray paint from who knows where.

"If anyone asks…" Jiraiya continued.

"We know nothing," they chorused together.

They blinked, looked at each other with a new sense of respect in their eyes… until Jiraiya's brain promptly caught up with his actions. "OI!" he yelped. "Don't copy me!"

Orochimaru looked at Jiraiya, turned his gaze to the blonds, and glanced back at Jiraiya. He made a half strangled noise from the back of his throat, idly wondered if throwing himself off the cliff would lead to a quick and painless death, and allowed the heel of his palm to connect with his forehead.

The very next morning, as the sun rose from the horizon and painted the Hokage monument a brilliant orange, two figures quickly darted from one stone head to the other, armed with spray paints and buckets. By the time the majority of the population had risen, finished their morning routines, and glanced out the window, they were faced with the astonishing discovery of what had become of their beloved Hokage Monument. Tobirama's head now sported glow-in-the-dark green hair, with a fat moustache, purple eye shadow, painted lips and a black eye. Hashirama's had been turned into a pretty geisha woman who bore no physical resemblance to the Shodai Hokage, with a bad case of sideburns.

Inside the Hokage's tower, the real Nidaime rubbed his temples at little Tsunade's insistent cackling as she flew out the window and down the tower (he didn't know how she learned tree walking) and stared owlishly at the vandalized rock faces of him and his brother.

Ten seconds later, when the image had finally registered and he was convinced his mental facilities were not malfunctioning, Tobirama valiantly resisted the tenacious urge to bang his head against the hard wood of his desk.

He settled for swearing violently instead, fishing into an open drawer of his desk for the curved jug of his emergency sake supply.

* * *

The wind whistled past the training ground, rustling the thin blades of grass. Naruto stared at his hands intently, slowly forcing out his chakra into a spiralling pattern. In front of him, placing one hand onto top of a half-formed rasengan, was a distinctly _female_ kage bunshin. _Naruko_ gave the miniaturized version of a bijuudama a raised eyebrow in critique. The ball of chakra flared once, twice, and fizzled away, leaving only the sharp tang of stifling ozone and chakra in the air.

Naruto gave the empty space a blank stare. "_Oh come on_," he groaned. "Ya kidding me? All that hard work… gone…"

Naruko snorted. "You should have expected this sweetie," she flounced, and elegantly dropped her sixteen year old body down onto a tree stump, pointing a perfectly manicured nail in Naruto's direction. "Your chakra control's even worse than usual."

From up on the tree behind Naruko, the genin-clone with the ninja wire Naruto had deemed Kaito smiled thinly. "And considering that you never had much control in the first place, that's an impressive feat," Kaito drawled.

"Wasn't tree climbing supposed to help me with that?" Naruto frowned.

"Yes and no. Tree climbing regulates the amount of chakra you use, but it only requires one to hold it outside the body in a steady stream for a certain amount of time. Rasengan's mechanics are different," Kaito remarked, idly checking his ninja wire. Naruto really wondered just how on hell he'd gotten his hands on it, but he figured it came with the jutsu. The specifics of a good majority of his personal projects were a little fuzzy.

"Your lack of intelligence doesn't really help," Naruko tacked on helpfully, propping her chin on her hands.

The original sent a withering look at his clones. "You people are supposed to be encouraging me here," Naruto ground out.

They paused, Naruko tapping her chin with her finger nail and Kaito twirling his wire into shapes reminiscent of Konoha nin, his silver framed glasses glinting in the light, as if thinking it over.

"Don't wanna," Naruko finally yawned.

"Exactly," Kaito agreed languidly.

"Why you-you bastards!" Naruto cried, automatically forming another rasengan in his hands. Like its precursors, it swirled ominously before vanishing.

Naruko rolled her eyes in an exaggerated motion. "You realize you're insulting yourself, right?"

"No…" Naruto bit his lip," if me insulting you means I'm insulting myself, then isn't it the same way around?"

"One," Naruko held up a finger. "That didn't make any sense. And two, we're figments of your conscious—subconscious, whatever, that and your imagination. We're technically not you, just certain attributes of you."

"That's not fair!" Naruto protested.

"Life ain't fair," she said flippantly.

"He listened to me before," Naruto pointed at the genin, trying to gain some leeway against Naruko.

Naruko lolled her shoulders into a shrug. "Same difference," she stated, looking as if she didn't give a damn.

"What the hell!" Naruto demanded. "And just what parts of my subconcious are you anyway?" What type of subconscious acted like Sasuke-teme in their genin days?

Naruko spayed a hand across her chest. "Sweetie," she drawled. "I am the epic princess—"

"The shameless bitch—" Kaito chimed in, a sweet undertone of deviousness marking his words.

Naruko flipped him the bird, a decidedly un-lady-like gesture, one hand going under the skin of her eye to mock an imitation of a raspberry. "And he," she jerked a thumb to point at Kaito. "Is the asshole," she declared.

"The smart one," Kaito deadpanned.

"You, on the other hand, are the moronic boss, not that we listen to you outside of battle," Naruko gave her counterpart a wicked grin. "But you managed to make the fox-with-a-stick-up-his-ass listen to you, so that counts for points." She idly inspected her fingernails.

"Hey I did, didn't I?" Naruto said proudly, puffing up his chest, "And—wait a minute, what'd you mean? You're me!" He furrowed his brow in confusion.

"I thought we went over this, like ten seconds ago," Naruko snarked. "We. Not. Really. You," she pronounced each word carefully with a roll of her pretty blue eyes. "We're reflections. Fragments. Reflections of you. Konotaru no jutsu uses that, we're who you might me, who you could have been, and who you have the potential to be." She tilted her head to the side. "That and the random personalities you copy off people or make at a whim," she admitted. "It's like when you act, you take on a different role, and you are the different role. That is what we are. We may have your memories, but the outcome of it is very different. Actually for some of us, it's less of we have your memories and more of we know _of _them, like we're watching the events of your life play out from a screen. We are you, but not," Naruko sharpened her gaze at Naruto. "How can you not know this?"

"Uh, I sorta-kinda knew about some of it," Naruto confessed. Ero-sennin had drilled the basics of the jutsu into his mind. "But how _do you_ know?!" he cried in perturbed frustration. Well, actually, they had his memories so they should know. Naruko had added parts he had no knowledge of in her explanation though.

"We can think differently," Kaito interjected from up on his tree.

"… Huh?" Naruto wondered.

"The same way you think differently from Sakura or Sasuke, our train of logic, depending on just which character we are, may goes down different routes," he stared flatly at Naruto, as if it was obvious.

Naruto opened his mouth to protest, blinked twice and closed his mouth again.

"Moriko's done her shift…" he muttered.

"About time too," Kaito said in reply, not that Naruto was really expecting one.

Moriko was a cheerful, voluptuous woman with a slight tendency to be forgetful who worked part-time in one of the bars in the outer rings of the red-light district. She was also another one of Naruto's Kotonaru no bunshin. She, along with an apprentice baker by the name of Sori Kousuke made money for Naruto when he was too busy graduating from the academy (and keeping an eye of the future sennin) to find a job of his own. Naruto hadn't been lying when he told the chibis about his "odd jobs," in the eyes of other people; they just weren't technically done by him.

"Delightful," Naruko hummed. "Now can we get back on topic?"

"What topic?"

"Rasengan. Your lack of flashy, overpowered moves that are oxymorons when combined with the word ninja," Kaito intoned, lips twitching upwards with unconcealed amusement.

Naruto scowled, crossing his arms over his chest in a defiant gesture. "Go to hell you bastard!"

"Unlikely," Kaito drawled.

"Fuck you," the blond cursed.

Naruko heaved a sigh and bent over. She delicately selected a small pebble from the ground. The female Kotonaru bunshin flipped it through the air several times, testing its weight, than hurled it through towards Naruto with one smooth stretch of her arm. The rock skipped through the air at an incredible velocity and collided solidly with the original's forehead, he was too busy arguing with Kaito to notice what Naruko had been planning.

"OOOW!" Naruto whined, hands automatically going up to touch the throbbing red imprint created by the stone. "What was that for?!"

"Focus on the task," Naruko reminded.

"He started it!" Naruto pointed one chubby, accusing finger at Kaito. The genin simply rolled his eyes.

"So?" Naruko deadpanned.

"Why me and not him?!"

"He's behind me. And I'm too lazy to turn around," Naruko admitted rather shamelessly, waving one hand in dismissal. For his part, the former jinchuuriki was red-faced and ready to blow up in agitation. The commencement of a screaming fest didn't seem too unlikely, even though Naruto was the one who would be doing the actual yelling, peppered vulgar language. Naruko and Kaito would sit, roll their eyes, and reply with a snarky answer every once in a while.

Kotonaru no bunshin was primarily made of possibilities, an insight into the theory of nature versus nurture along with the occasional copy-right of another person's personality, mixed with a different set of physical attributes that suits their characteristics. It was amazing to see how different the two bunshin were from the original.

"Training," Kaito reminded Naruto, for what seemed like the umpteenth time in an hour.

"Why did I choose to summon you two again?" Naruto grumbled, plopping down on the ground, his red colouring faded as he took deep breaths.

"Dunno. Well, you're stuck with us now," Naruko chirped with near sadistic glee.

_In, out, inhale, exhale, ignore, ignore, ignore. Just like what Sakura-chan taught me._ There was a stab of pain and deep-set longing in his chest. Naruto swallowed thickly. He had refrained from thinking about his friends and precious people during his waking hours, preferring to drown out the thoughts into the deepest recesses with Tsunade's schemes, Jiraiya's plans for improvement and hell, even Orochimaru-bastard— _no, not yet, not a bastard yet, hasn't done anything—_chibi's weary resignation to pull them out of their messes. The nightmares had dulled in his time here, the terrors had faded into the background, and Sakura-chan's face no longer flashed in front of him _deaddeaddead._

He missed his friends. Dear Kami he missed them. This time though, everything would turn out all right, it was a promise. And Uzumaki Naruto never went back on his word.

Another rock bounced off his forehead threateningly. Naruto zoned back into reality, catching Naruko's unamused features in his line of vision.

"You can daydream later, dearie," Naruko said. "Now _hurry up."_

"Okay, okay," Naruto grumbled, forming familiar handseals, and in a split second, the training field was flooded with his signature technique. His limit with his new reserves was fifteen kage-bunshin at a time, a far cry from his usual hundreds, and he didn't really want to use sage mode without any precautions set up. There were sensors in Konoha. "Back to the water balloon," he told them grumpily, pointing at the bag sitting beside the little stream running several yards away. He had hauled the bag to the training ground just in case, and at Naruko's boisterous insistence. The horde of Narutos gave their boss a professional salute and dumped the rubber toys onto the grass, methodically filling the balloons with water.

"Now," Kaito kicked off his tree, adding power to the leap with a deft twist of chakra. The branch he had sat on quivered a bit from the force. He summersaulted over Naruko's head and skidded to a halt in front of her male counterpart with a grin, baring rows of pearly teeth. "We need to find a solution to your _other _problem."

* * *

Meanwhile, at the local orphanage:

Orochimaru snipped off the end of the string with a pair of scissors. He held his newest project up to the watery yellow light common within the orphanage, inspecting the meticulously embroidered patchwork of flowers on the blue sundress. Orochimaru had decided to follow Naruto's example of working in his spare time to make a bit of money. But instead of buying a heart stopping supply of ramen, he used his earnings on quality ninja tools and scraps of cheap, plain cloth and coloured thread for clothing. Orphanage children rarely ever got anything but hand me downs, and recycled objects.

It took him a month and a honest dislike for needles before he got the hang of sewing, but with time came with experience. Orochimaru wasn't a genius for nothing, after all. His newest pastime was a birthday gift meant for a girl younger than him by a year.

Orochimaru chewed on his lower lip, staring cross-eyed at the dress. Slowly, he rolled his needle between his thumb and index finger in thought, picking out a slight, irregular dip in his work, an error. Ignoring the tiny voice—which, oddly enough, sounded like Jiraiya—swearing at him for his perfectionism, Orochimaru began to undo a row of slightly lopsided stitches_. _

_Patience, _he told himself, as the Jiraiya like voice got indefinitely louder_. _God knows he would need it in the future.

* * *

Kaito gnawed on the stem of a flower and pressed a thin brush onto a roll of parchment situated in the middle of a triangle made by two bunshin and the Naruto. "Dogs?" he asked Naruto, letting the liquid ink drip onto the page in black splatters. "You certainly are loyal enough to your village."

"But that Kakashi-sensei's!" Naruto countered. His lack of a summon was worrying, as his former animal companions made up a large part of his fighting style. Unfortunately, ero-chibi had yet to discover the toad's secret mountain, and thus their summoning scroll was still with the frog elders. Naruto didn't particularly memorize just where that blasted place was located.

"Hatake Kakashi has yet to be born in this era."

"I don't have the dog summon contract!"

"Then steal it," Kaito remarked easily, as if they were talking about yesterday's lunch or something. As if stealing a prized summon contract wasn't a crime punishable by death and other gruesome consequences. Naruto often wondered about his clones, and just which part of his personality, which path they might have taken to end up this way. He wondered if somehow, in another, upside down, crazed world he might have ended up like them: sadistic, cold Kaito and arrogant Naruko. Naruto did what he had to do, and stealing a summoning contract wasn't a necessarily.

"_It's Kakashi sensei's_!" Naruto insisted, stubbornly voicing his thoughts.

"You are a ninja, act like one."

"In orange," Naruko sing-songed.

"Yes, what Naruko said, a ninja in orange," Kaito deadpanned. He twirled the lithe little brush in his fingers like kunai, dipped the tip into the smooth curve of the inkwell beside the sheet of parchment and dabbed the excess ink off the sides of the diminutive jar. With a flourish, Kaito gracefully crossed the Kanji for dog off the paper.

"Damn you."

"Cats?" Naruto didn't like cats. Long, gruelling missions involving a lazy Kakashi and Tora had eliminated any love he might have had for the feline creatures.

"They're way too proud to be with you, sweetie," Naruko crooned. Personally, she reminded Naruto of a cat, proud and deadly.

"I knew I should have sticked with toads…" he murmured.

"You don't have the natural affinity, and Jiraiya-darling isn't going to be getting their contract anytime soon. There's a reason why only people with insane reserves have a specialized contract," Naruko said, winking at Naruto.

The blond got the hint. "You mean… like me?"

"Who else would I be talking about here?"

"Yatta! Awesome!."

Kaito interjected in a distinctly ass-hole like voice. "Hmm… what do you think of the boar, it compliments his single-mindedness perfectly," he commented, absently tapping the tip of his brush on the corner of the ink jar.

"Did I model you off Sai?! Cause you're even more of a bastard than Sai and Sasuke-teme put together-ttebayo"

"Glad to be here."

"Soo… a pegasus?" Naruto said excitedly, dutifully ignoring Kaito's comment. "Those are pretty cool. Or maybe a phoenix! Or a dragon! What'd ya think?"

"Those are mythological creatures."

"Dude, we have Bijuu running around," Naruto stated logically.

"You don't know where to receive the actual contract," Kaito deadpanned.

Naruko threw up her hands. "Foxes, you dimwits! Foxes!"

Kaito wrinkled his brow, and turned to Naruko, giving her a dry look. "Foxes are epitome of cunning, intelligence and stealth, bar Kurama, only because he's far too big for that. Those three words and Naruto don't belong on the same planet."

"I'm plenty stealthful! I got past the ANBU!"

"They'll balance out his natural attributes," Naruko supposed. "And he already tamed the biggest one of all. A summoning should be a piece of cake compared to the kyuubi.

"Well, he certainly looks enough like one…" Kaito trailed off.

"Don't talk as if I'm not here!"

* * *

"Come on! It'll be real fun! I told her 'bout you guys lots of times!" Tsunade insisted vividly to the three boys situated on top of Naruto's dining table. Orochimaru and Jiraiya glanced at her with uncertain eyes. Naruto had a half-hopeful, half… something kind of expression on his face. Tsunade squinted at it, but the flash of emotion was lost to her. Out of all of them, Tsunade was the only one with decent family relationships, or even a family at all in the long run. Her parents often ran missions outside of the village, but she always had Granny Mito and Great Uncle 'Rama for company. Orochimaru had a sort of sketchy family with his fellow orphans. Naruto… she didn't exactly know about Naruto, and Jiraiya's parents were just dense.

In turn, Orochimaru's social skills were debatable (retarded even) at best. Naruto was the exact opposite of him, charming and rambunctious, if a little annoying and Jiraiya hovered somewhere in the middle.

Tsunade liked her boys, she wished them the best. And Tsunade would knock them out, dump them all into a potato sack she had stashed in her storage scroll (a birthday present from Mito), and haul them to Granny Mito's house to meet _her_ family if it came down to that.

The blonde pouted, waving her arms in exaggerated motions. "It'll be awesome! Granny has a lot of cool stuff at her place!"

Naruto picked at a speck of dirt. "Do—"

"Uh huh, Pork, miso and all that."

"What 'bout—"

"Ruuuutoooooo!" Tsunade whined. "Have it, have it!"

"How 'bout a sexy jutsu?" Naruto questioned, seeming a little too hopeful for Tsunade's liking.

"Yeah—I mean… wait, WHAT?!"

Naruto reaffirmed, "The sexy—"

"Gone past Anbu," Tsunade huffed. "Don't need it…"

Naruto gave a long, dramatic moan in complaint. "But it's epic!"

"Naruto!"

"Okay, okay…" he muttered crossly.

She narrowed her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. "Come on! Granny Mito's real nice too. She'll show you awesome ninja tricks! And maybe sealing!" The promise of something "super awesome" did the trick, as their wary expressions gave way to interest and glee. Tsunade nodded her head, inwardly cackling with delight, "Let's go!" she hooted.

* * *

The house was traditional, with steep, ornamental ceilings and muted cherry wood. A thin stalk of ivy crept up its side, and thick curtains concealed the interior from prying eyes. It was one of those ancient buildings you would expect the rich and famous to dwell in. From a certain angle, Mito could be pinned as both of these things.

Naruto shifted nervously from one foot to another, sneaking glances at the door_. Tsunade's family's loaded! Meh… she is Senju heir, and… actually… just where in hell did all the Senjus disappear off to in my time period? They were as big as the Uchiha clan._

Tsuanade tapped her foot impatiently, she was practically bouncing on the spot, "GRANNY!" she called at the door. "OPEN THE DOOR!"

A brief scuffling sound occurred from the other side, and the door swung open. A woman poked her head out, glancing down at the children.

Granny Mito looked prominently younger than what Naruto had imagined, but every one of Naruto's envisioned images of her eventually ended up as a wrinkled old woman with thinning hair and heavy wrinkles much like Hokage-jiji, so that wasn't saying much. She had smooth skin untainted by the hurricane known as age and long red hair pinned up with expensive hair ornaments. The woman barely looked as if she were in her thirties, definitely not old enough to be Tsunade's grandmother.

Naruto plastered a wide grin to his face, craning his neck up and up to drink in the visage of a fellow clan member. _Kurama's first Jinchuuriki_, he recalled mentally. He wasn't usually one for cunning or strategy when he was _Naruto_, nonetheless, it wasn't as if he could just offhandedly mention something about Kurama to Mito. It would most definitely end up with him careened to Torture and Interrogation in a one way trip, never to come back out. He had a niggling feeling Kurama had been his usual ass of a self and told _something_ to Mito.

"Come," Mito smiled, herding them in with a sweep of her arm, the elegant embroidery in her kimono catching in the light, all bright silk and heavy layers. It looked absurdly expensive.

Hesitantly, apart from Tsunade who bounced into the house with familiarity, they edged through the doorway. Mito closed the door silently and gestured them to the dining room.

They scurried through the halls, ending up in a large room with a rounded table in the middle. Tsunade happily swung her legs from atop wooden chair and blew at her mug of hot tea. She motioned for them to take a seat. Mito glided—because that was the only word fit to describe how she moved—across the room and distributed fancy cups as the children eased themselves into the chairs.

"How is school?" Mito asked conversationally, shifting her robes slightly so that she was comfortable in her own seat. She stared poured the hot, fragrant liquid into their cups and glanced at Naruto and friends with blatant encouragement.

"It's real fun!" Naruto grinned, subtly elbowing Jiraiya in the ribs to make him continue. He sniffed at his own mug, and downed a gulp of tea. It was good, nutty and easy on the throat with a touch of jasmine. Jiraiya gave a half-choking, half-spluttering sound as the tea travelled down the wrong tube, and kicked Naruto underneath the table in vengeance.

"The instructors are real funny," he replied enthusiastically, before ducking his head to stare at the interesting patterns on the wooden table. Naruto thought that the academy instructors were more boring than funny. And overly paranoid, but that might have been the results of one prank too many.

"It's boring," Tsunade rolled her eyes. "They talk for a long, long time but don't really give us anything to do," she pursed her lips, to convey some message across. "Other stuff's a lot more fun."

"And they yell at us for pranks," Naruto tacked on helpfully.

"Yeah!" Tsunade continued. "And they shouldn't yell when they couldn't even dodge it! 'Ruto and I made up lots of good ones."

Mito looked at them long and hard, an accusing glint in her eye. "… Were you responsible for the incident with the Hokage Monument?" Mito hummed.

Tsunade frowned, and revolved her head to glare at a spot on the ceiling. "Maybe…" she said petulantly.

"It was all the bear's fault!" Naruto declared, saving his fellow partner in crime from a near fatal pit-trap. "The Bear" was the codename Tsunade had developed for an arrogant, fat, idiot in sixth year who kept picking on Orochimaru called Tadashi Daiki. He had started it ever since they had advanced to sixth year a month ago (so that they could graduate by the end of the semester, which was in two months' time.)

"Exactly," Tsunade confirmed, quickly catching on. "Cause he was all like 'I'm better than you' and stuff," her forehead dipped and twisted at the unscrupulous memory. "We did a prank, stuck his pants down to his seat like that one time with Sensei. He went crying home to his mommy," she said triumphantly.

Strategies for undercover missions number 8: misdirect the opponent. Steer them onto another topic of interest, make them confused and keep them on that topic.

Mito flashed a smile that told Naruto she knew exactly what they were trying to do, she just wasn't commenting on it. "Of course," she agreed readily. "What else?"

"We had a trip last week!" Tsunade crowed. "We went to a center place-thing! Like the ones Grandpa Rama used to take me to! These people were playing with cards and it looked kinda fun and I tried to join and—"

"Gambling…?" Mito gaze sharpened. _"Damn_ Hashirama…" she whispered under her breath. "Gambling, gambling of all things." Mito's smile froze, her brow twitching with hidden anger at her late husband as the grip on her cup tightened.

Senju Hashirama had died a mere seven months before Naruto had managed to land in this particular time period. How he had died, Naruto didn't really know the specifics of, what he did know marked the event as one of those things in life that made little sense. The guy could fight on par with a Kurama armoured Madara! How in hell did he fall to some shinobi near Iwa?

Having not heard her, Tsunade continued enthusiastically, "And I played like how gramps taught me, but I lost…" Her features morphed into a sulk. "Those big meanies."

Naruto inwardly grimaced as Tsunade jabbered on about her losses (children were competitive), and Mito's knuckles grew whiter with each conspicuous word. Tsunade-obaa-chan's debt in the future was titanic. The Uzumakis had the devil's luck; so to speak, Tsunade obviously couldn't have inherited her absurd luck from her grandmother's side. Hashirama was another story altogether.

"And sealing," Jiraiya interjected quietly, eyeing Mito's bone white knuckles with caution.

That, apparently, wasn't quite the right thing to say.

"Sealing," Mito repeated slowly, pronouncing the word with obvious bewilderment. "Where, child, did you learn sealing."

"Um… er… the librairy?" he squeaked, suddenly very conscious of the dark, shadowed expression that flitted over Mito's face. Orochimaru, Tsunade and Naruto kept their mouths firmly shut, not wanting to risk an angry Uzumaki.

The corner of Mito's mouth twitched.

"Did you know, that the reason sealing is such a seldom seen art, is because the majority of the practisers are dead?" Her tone was icy.

Jiraiya suddenly grew very, very pale. "… No?"

Jiraiya didn't know, but Naruto did. At least, he kind of did. His attempts at sealing were disasters in themselves, but ero-sennin had always been there when anything went haywire, or blew up. Naruto had long since given up sealing. Meh, life was full of danger anyways.

Mito pinched the bridge of her nose, releasing her death grip on her cup before it could shatter. "Very well, what's done is done. Although I'm glad you're still alive at this point in time, never, ever practice sealing without expert supervision. Not until you are proficient enough," she paused, before adding: "if you manage to get to that point without dying."

Jiraiya gulped.

"I however, will constantly be here if you do need supervision. You are welcome to visit."

Slowly, with the speed of a snail, Jiraiya's brain clicked back into action. "Wait. You-you'll tutor me? You know sealing?" He nearly jumped onto the table.

Mito could have rolled her eyes. "The Uzumaki clan are renowned for their ability of sealing as much as the Uchiha and Hyuuga are for their dojutsus."

"Really?" he stared at her with wide eyes.

"… Yes."

"However, I am reconsidering on the activity I had thought I could give to you." Mito gave a small, decidedly fake sigh. She was playing with them.

"Granny! You promised" Tsunade slung an arm around Naruto's shoulder and another around Orochimaru's. "They want to do it too! So does Raiya."

Mito grinned mischievously, "And you'll be good?"

"Of course!" Jiraiya answered, the others chorusing in mutual agreement.

"Now, Tsunade told me you have been practising chakra control and related exercises?" Mito slipped three pieces of paper from her sleeve and laid them across the table. It was chakra paper, Naruto noted. "This," Mito tapped the sheet closest to her with the tip of her fingernail, "is called chakra paper. Channel your chakra into it, it will tell you your elemental nature. If it becomes wet, your affinity is water, if it burns, than fire, if it rips, it is wind, if it wrinkles, then it's lightning, and if it is earth, the chakra will crumble to dirt."

To demonstrate, Mito pulled out another slice of paper out of her sleeve. She held it carefully in between her pointer finger and her thumb, almost instantly, as if jolted by some invisible voice Naruto knew was chakra, the paper wrinkled visibly, and promptly dampened seconds afterwards.

_Dual water and lightning._ Naruto assessed._ COOL! _To be frank, he should have been a little more worried on why the possibly senile woman was giving a trio of six-year-olds and a seven-year-old chakra testing paper. The possibilities for unnatural accidents were off the charts.

"Sometimes," Mito quirked an eyebrow at their astonished faces, "if you have more than one affinity, the paper will meet both of those expectations. In my case, I have a lightning nature that is balanced by a secondary water nature."

Orochimaru, ever the scholar, raised his hand. "Wait," he frowned at the paper, contemplating something, "if you have a particular nature, does that mean you can only use that nature? Or perhaps you can use other natures but not to the level of your first affinity?"

Mito blinked. "You can use other chakra natures, but it takes much more time to become a master of all five elements. For example, if someone has a water nature, and they try to produce a fire jutsu, the fire jutsu will be horribly uncontrolled."

"I see…"

"Dibs!" Jiraiya scrambled across the table for a piece of paper, nearly ramming into Orochimaru. "I bet I'm gonna get a super awesome affinity!" he gloated.

Naruto gingerly shuffled the paper around in his palms. He knew what his chakra nature was, and wind was the absolute best chakra nature to ever grace Elemental Nations, if he said so himself. The chibis however, well, by the time he had met the sennin, they had already mastered so many different elemental affinities and super-powered jutsu that Naruto had never really been able to discover their original chakra nature.

Chakra nature was usually determined by heritage and personality, the former more so than the latter. That was the reason why the majority of nin in Hidden Mist had water natures, while the ones in Leaf had fire oriented affinities. There wasn't really a personality quota for each nature, as two different people could be as different as Kakashi and Gai and still have the exact same chakra nature.

He watched on with interest as Tsunade went first, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration as her chakra spiked. There was a moment of prudent silence and baited breath that Naruto wasn't aware he was holding, before her paper finally wrinkled in her small hands. "Lightning!" she giggled happily, turning to her friends with sparkling eyes. "I'm just like you Granny!" Tsunade proclaimed.

Jiraiya scowled, unable to receive a result. "… How is this supposed to work again?" he asked, waving the sheet around in the air.

"Pretend your chakra is an extension of yourself, and let it flow into the paper," Orochimaru suggested lightly, carefully inspecting his own sheet which had been neatly cleaved in half, seconds before. "Mine is wind."

Jiraiya bit on his lower lip and channelled chakra into the page, slowly but surely, the page sparked and ignited. "Fire," he whispered, awed as thin bursts of flickering flames danced red-hot a mere inch above his palms with soothing reds and oranges. Cautiously mounting it to eyelevel, he glanced down as the last bits faded away to slight embers, dissipating into the air.

"Beautiful..." Tsunade gazed at Jiraiya with wide eyes, her hands clasped just underneath her chin in revered amazement at the sudden light show. "That's awesome Jiraiya-chan!" Even Orochimaru looked impressed, his eyes still fixated on that spot where the fire twirled.

Jiraiya scratched the back of his head in a sheepish motion, but his grin was ear-splitting and filled to the brim with pride.

"Yatta!" Naruto cradled his sheet to the white light flooding the room, and squinted. "My turn! Bet my affinity's gonna be better than yours!" He declared childishly. As was expected, the moment his chakra entered the paper, it was sliced into two, much like Orochimaru's in his previous turn.

"Lightning!" Tsunade yelled, planting her hands onto the desk.

"Wind!" Naruto defended.

"LIGHTNING!"

"WIND"

"LIGHT—"

"WIND!" They bantered, completely ignoring the single adult in the room that they might have made a not so good (or humorous) impression on. Jiraiya and Orochimaru simply shrugged and continued to watch the show with familiar ease; it was a common occurrence.

"LIGHTWIND!"

"That's enough children," Mito placed a soothing hand on each of their shoulders. "You are inside, use quieter voices." Releasing her hold on the blonds, she studied Naruto with a piercing violet gaze. A gaze that had seen war upon war, death upon death and faced the decision of sealing a monster of absurd destruction within herself and gone along with it, standing head strong. This wasn't the kind, grandmotherly Mito Naruto had enjoyed for the premier of this visit. No, this was Uzumaki Mito, the wife of the Shodai, jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi; a strong, strong woman with a will of steel and a heart of fire.

Naruto gulped unconsciously. There was going to be some interrogation, he just knew it! Backup plans had been obediently prearranged (at the insistence of Naruko and Kaito) if anything like this chose to happen, they weren't good backup plans per say, but he had some resemblance of a story.

"Tell, me Naruto-kun," Mito started, all pleasant and professional. "Do you remember your parents?"

"I… um… I don't remember my old man," which was true, he didn't really remember his father. "But I remember my mother… she died a long time ago…" in the future, so theoretically speaking it was a long time, just not in the past. "She looked like you."Meticulously, Naruto recreated the slight glimpse of his mother he had seen in that one immortal moment, red haired and fiery tempered—a classic Uzumaki. "But she said I took after my dad," again the truth, with a sprinkling of misdirection to maintain the facade.

"Was your mother's last name Uzumaki?" Mito tilted her head in question.

"Uh huh, I never knew my old man, but I owe mom, so I took her maiden name," he said softly. Truth, kind of, it wasn't false per say, but it wasn't totally true either.

"Hmm... and when did your mother die?"

Naruto inwardly despaired. _I'm dead I'm dead I'm so screwed. No—wait. Keep calm, what would Sakura-chan do in this situation?_ _Er…_ "I, I don't remember. I remember her, but I don't remember when she… was… gone."_ Yes, act like Hinata, Naruto. Be shy, un-threatening, like a bunny rabbit… or something. _He swallowed thickly; the image of Hokage-jiji came to mind, old and _dead._ "I remember her hair, and she liked ramen too… and she was a lot… like me. I think. But that's it… I've been wandering the streets ever since."

Play on the opponent's sympathy; act like a lost, desolate little street boy.

Mito didn't seem very convinced. Of course she wouldn't be convinced; Mito hadn't been a ninja for nothing. But he had certain aces on her, he was a Uzumaki and the Uzumaki protected fellow clan members—family at all costs. Uzumakis were loyalty and fiery tempers, vitality and sympathy, It was like an engraved bloodline trait.

The woman poured herself another cup of tea and conveniently changed the subject.

Naruto breathed a small sigh in relief.

The first bullet had been dodged.

* * *

"Bye bye!" Tsunade chirped merrily from atop the stairs, waving goodbye to her friends for the day. Naruto grinned in return, and Jiraiya fired back what seemed like a good natured salute. Orochimaru was still playing around with his chakra paper.

Mito stood placidly by Tsunade, watching the trio of boys leave with an odd expression, before turning back to her granddaughter.

"Tsunade," Mito said, her hands snaking around Tsunade's wrist when the girl tried to scamper away into the yard.

Tsunade laughed, a tad bit nervous. "What is it Granny?" The blonde really, really hoped she hadn't figured _it_ out.

Mito's brow twitched. _Uh oh. _Tsunade thought. _That mean's she's really angry at something._

"Where did my scrolls on sealing go?" Mito asked.

"Ehehehe…" Tsunade's expression was like a little kid who had tried to sneak an extra cookie from a jar. "Ooops?"

"TSUNADE!"

* * *

They weren't what she had expected, Mito recollected as she sipped her tea. They were intelligent, very intelligent, but that was only to be expected of Tsunade's peers.

The first was a black haired boy with gold eyes and a calm deposition. An orphan, he had pale scars across his fingers, perhaps from an interest in sewing and callouses from the use of kunai. His quick wit and cunning was frightening for someone so young, but he was nervous, cautious right now, unable to deal with other students and people in a general sense.

Her first glimpse of the white haired child was a crude and scowling face, but he had at least tried to be polite. Family issues, Mito had deduced, a fear for failure, constantly overshadowed by another, an older sibling more likely than not. And, Mito had realized with growing amusement, a little crush on Tsunade.

The third was a boy with a mop of blond hair and smudged cheeks. _Uzumaki Naruto,_ the words rolled off her tongue like fine chocolate. It was powerful name, and the boy was Uzumaki through and through despite the differentiating colouring. The little piece of paper she had slipped to him specifically had an invisible seal placed on it, ordered to react only in contact for her Uzumaki kin.

However, some of his attributes were rather worrisome, his cheeks, whiskered like a fox's brought back that unpleasant conversation. Coincidence, or not, she would need to keep a close eye on him.

The potential in the group was overwhelming. Four geniuses in a single generation, Mito deduced that Tsunade would be placed on a team with the former two. Age differences and all, not that one year was that much of a gap… but the Uzumaki, one of the only Uzumakis she had seen ever since leaving her homeland… his situation would be a little different.

As they say, keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

* * *

The air was buzzing and filled with excitement outside of the academy. Students conjugated into clusters, marvelling at their new forehead protectors and high from the future revelations of their genin teams.

Naruto fingered his brand new forehead protector, running his hands over the smooth metal in nostalgic remembrance. The first time he had sort of made genin, it was with a flurry of events and revelations so astounding; the thought of graduation paled would have in comparison for others.

This time around, the tests were harder, oddly enough, but in the future, the leaf had still been suffering from the brainwashed-Kyuubi attack twelve years ago. From what ero-sennin had said, the genin exams used to have much more obstacles than just a basic exam to prevent pre-teens from going out and getting themselves killed in the process. The jounin instructors were there to help, but there were certain tests to make sure you were fit, both physically and _mentally._ Actually the academy in this time period was just harder in general, but peace times in the future made things laxed, not to mention Konoha needed shinobi after Madara's stunt a mere decade before.

Naruto watched as Jiraiya deftly secured his headband around his right arm, the steel glinting metallic in the light. Then he untied it and wrapped it around his forehead, fumbling with the slight knot at the back. "How do I look?" he asked giddily, practically bouncing off the ground from sheer adrenaline.

"Ridiculous," Orochimaru deadpanned as Jiraiya's hitai-ate drooped down over his eyes after a moment of obedience. The white-haired boy muffled a curse underneath his breath and shoved the piece of metal up a little above his eye brows.

The average Konoha hitai-ate came only in one size for all ninja (you would wear it from genin to jounin) unless you specially send in an order for it to be customised, and that was much too troublesome. Orochimaru dexterously unzipped a small pouch on his thigh, quickly picking out a thin bamboo tube from amongst a clutter of other objects. Unscrewing the lid, he fished out a sewing needle and a roll of black thread, and began to stitch his newly received hitai-ate into a strip of long black cloth.

"… When in hell did you learn to sew?!" Jiraiya subtly poked the needle with the tip of his finger, quickly retracting it when Orochimaru shot him a glare.

The pale boy expertly looped a knot at the end and slit the string with a freshly sharpened kunai before turning back to Jiraiya. "When you weren't looking," Orochimaru replied smoothly.

"Enough about you!" Tsunade slipped behind their backs with practiced ease and sent a kick into Jiraiya's thigh. Twisting his entire body to the right, Orochimaru was nearly parallel to the ground when Tsunade hooked an uppercut to his chin. He back flipped in the air to evade it, curling into a little ball as Tsunade flicked a kunai in his direction. Orochimaru palmed his own kunai and deflected Tsunade's with a clang… only to have the kunai switch directions and rocket back towards him.

Naruto squinted _… the hell?_

Orochimaru ducked the kunai, and landed, a look of comprehension dawned on his face just as Naruto caught the almost invisible glint of ninja wire attached to the weapon.

There was a faint pop, a flash of white, and the area was flooded in smoke.

Explosions sounded to his right, rocking the terrain, Naruto grinned, steadying himself and opening his other senses as smoke blinded his vision. It seemed that Jiraiya was back into the game. Through the thin whiteness he could see Orochimaru flying through hand seals, Orochimaru jumped into midair once again and took a deep breath in, an enormous gust of wind whistled through and dissolved the remaining smoke a split second later.

Naruto ducked low as the sight of an explosive tag-kunai duo (courtesy of Jiraiya) careened his way. There was a pop to his front, a twist of chakra and a log was blown into unrecognizable pieces when Orochimaru substituted to escape the other seal-kunai.

The substitution had brought have far away from the main fight, and closer to Naruto.

Naruto flicked a rock into the bush at Orochimaru's right, smiling when he tensed slightly. Several meters away, Tsunade and Jiraiya were trading blows and explosives at a terrifying rate.

Flick.

The bush shuddered again.

Deciding to put Orochimaru out of his misery, Naruto quickly formed a squad of kage-bunshin to ambush Tsunade and Jiraiya, quickly substituting with a pebble behind the bush. He grimaced when a kunai nearly sheered of an inch of hair from the top of the head, before popping his head out and holding his hands up in peace.

Orochimaru relaxed the hold on his weapon, but his eyes never left Naruto's hands.

_Smart._

Naruto moved to Orochimaru side, the one opposite of the kunai. "Beating each other up again?" Naruto chirped, petting the younger boy's hair.

Orochimaru rolled his eyes. "We're fighting in an authorized and civilized minor," he stressed, whacking Naruto's hand off his head.

"Same thing."

They both winced as Tsunade missed Jiraiya's face by about an inch and her fist connected with the ground instead. There was a tremor and then a _CRACK-THUMP_—_the ground cratered._

Jiraiya gaped.

Orochimaru rubbed his eyes in perturbed astonishment.

Taking the opening, Tsunade brought her hand down on Jiraiya's head with a thump and a furious war cry. Jiraiya collapsed almost instantaneously onto the ground, his hands clutching at his poor head in pain. Orochimaru, wisely deciding to stay out of the way, edged a few steps away, just in case he became Tsunade's next victim. Naruto stood his ground.

_Just like old times._

It was familiar, the genin exams, and these scenes playing out in front of him. So, achingly familiar it hurt.

Naruto's breath hitched.

Because suddenly it wasn't the chibi trio anymore, bickering and shouting and complaining in too high voices, it was them, team seven,_ his_ team seven. The visage of Tsunade dissipated into twelve year old Sakura's long, pink hair and then there was teme, leaning non-chalantly onto a tree trunk, Kakashi sensei sat high up on a branch, one eye curved and the distinct cover of his porn held in front of his mask. This was team seven_, laughing, crying team seven that should have been his, could have been his team seven_, before that bastard not-Orochimaru, before the catastrophe of events that _broke _them and _split their friendship into a million shattered fragments. _

_No_, he mouthed. Taking a step back as the scenery shifted once again. He had been trying to avoid something like this!

There was a blur of colour and another image wavered into place. Sakura, older sixteen year old Sakura stood in the middle of a battle field, head held up high and defiant. Sasuke and Kakashi kept their ground on both sides, and then Obito—that fucking bastard waved his hand and there was death and destruction _and they were dead and he wasn't there and they were gonegonegone_. There was a pin prick of something wet trailing down his cheeks and his throat was dry and parched. No. _They were alive, in the future, maybe not now but they will be alive. They had to be alive. _

_What do you know?_ A tiny, niggling voice echoed through his mind, childish and giggling. _Maybe they're already dead and gone and you're here doing nothing but playing around. Maybe the jutsu sent you somewhere else and they died in the war? What do you know?_ It crooned.

"'Ruto?" Tsunade's hesitant whisper made the world spin back into reality, she was right in front of him, out the corner of his vision, he could see Jiraiya hobbling awkwardly towards him. He blinked, and shakily lifted one hand to his eyes, rubbing the sleeve of his sweater desperately over the tears. "Why are you crying?"

"Nuthin'," he sniffed. "Something-something just got into my eye." The excuse sounded fake even to his own ears. Tsunade took an unsure step towards him, and once again when he peeled open crusty eyelids, Tsunade wasn't there anymore.

_Sakura, one giant hole through her stomach and a jagged, wound still slippery with blood looked at him with kind eyes, her hands glowing green with medical chakra. Why didn't you heal yourself? He wanted to ask. But this wasn't real and he needed to stop hallucinating and why were his dreams coming to reality? Kakashi sensei gave him an eye smile with torn clothing and no visible injury, but chakra exaushtion didn't leave visible marks and sensei was always overexerting himself. Teme was the worst because teme was stubborn and the sharigan made him a bigger target. A gruesome scar ran down his face to his chest and he had no eyes, just empty gaping sockets. They were all looking at him kindly, even though teme's expression was still a little hard. Why? He croaked mentally. I failed you guys, failedfailedfailed._

This was not happening now. Not in front of Tsunade-chibi, Raiya and Orochimaru-chibi. _This was not happening_, he told himself firmly, rooted to the spot. The hallucination-zombies advanced with careful steps towards him, one arm out like one would do to a startled animal.

A beat.

Naruto turned and ran, unheeding of the startled cries behind him.

That night, he pressed his cheek against the cool gray rock of the memorial stone. Beams of silky moonlight filtered through the clearing and shed light on the names incised expertly into the rock. At the back of his mind, the voice reared its ugly head. Through his mind's eye, he could see a figure, small, with large eyes as blue as his own. _Who are you?_ He asked sullenly, even though he already knew the answer.

Emotions. Regret. Defense mechanisms. Instinctive genjutsu.

The figure tilted back its head and laughed. It laughed and laughed like a broken, shattered, version of Naruto gone mad with grief and anger. It laughed until its thin shrieks cracked and slowly morphed into half-hearted sobs and hiccups. "I'm you of course," it whispered, crying, even though both of them knew. "Just another reflection of you."

* * *

_A/N: Thank you to all my dear reviewers and shadow readers, and an extra thank you to Dorcyy, for recommending my amateur-ish story on her "Chance for a Prophecy." _

_Mito kind of tutoring Jiraiya- It's less of tutoring and more of making sure that he doesn't accidentally kill himself in an explosion. Additionally, some pieces of this might seem a little AU, as the amount of plot chasms in this era easily goes into the double digits. Or it might not seem very AU. It will depends on how hard you look._

_Mito's age- She's a Uzumaki, a pure blood one at that, she's supposed to look young. But when Kushina comes in like a decade she's an old croon? Well, let's just say that with nearing of the end of his jailer's life, Kurama decided to but some extra effort into getting out, thus causing her aged appearance._

_Leave a review on your way out please! _


End file.
